An artificial nerve fiber for evaluation of nerve cuff electrodes

The different applications of natural sensors for feedback in rehabilitation systems using functional electrical stimulation (FES) require specialised and optimised designs of nerve cuff electrodes for recording of the sensory information. This paper describes a simple artificial nerve fiber for evaluation of nerve cuff electrode designs, cuff recording configurations and noise reduction methods in a controlled environment. The idea is to experimentally identify the transfer function from a nerve fiber to the cuff electrode and make a computed construction of a single fiber action potential. This is done using an action current template as input to the identified transfer functions. The artificial nerve was tested on three cuffs of different lengths and the results showed good agreement with the results from a nerve conduction model of a single fiber action potential in an inhomogeneous volume conductor.