title: Influence of different geometric representations of the volume conductor on nerve activation during electrical stimulation.
abstract: Volume conductor models with different geometric representations, such as the parallel layer model (PM), the cylindrical layer model (CM), or the anatomically based model (AM), have been employed during the implementation of bioelectrical models for electrical stimulation (FES). Evaluating their strengths and limitations to predict nerve activation is fundamental to achieve a good trade-off between accuracy and computation time. However, there are no studies aimed at clarifying the following questions. (1) Does the nerve activation differ between CM and PM? (2) How well do CM and PM approximate an AM? (3) What is the effect of the presence of blood vessels and nerve trunk on nerve activation prediction? Therefore, in this study, we addressed these questions by comparing nerve activation between CM, PM, and AM models by FES. The activation threshold was used to evaluate the models under different configurations of superficial electrodes (size and distance), nerve depths, and stimulation sites. Additionally, the influences of the sciatic nerve, femoral artery, and femoral vein were inspected for a human thigh. The results showed that the CM and PM had a high error rate, but the variation of the activation threshold followed the same tendency for electrode size and interelectrode distance variation as AM.
authors.affiliation: Medical System Engineering Department, Chiba University, Yayoi Chou, Inage Ku, No. 1-33, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gómez-Tames
authors.affiliation: Neural Rehabilitation Group, Cajal Institute, Spanish Research Council, Avenue Doctor Arce 37, 28002 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: González
authors.affiliation: Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Chiba University, Yayoi Chou, Inage Ku, No. 1-33, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
authors.forename: Wenwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016880:Anisotropy; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000473:pathology; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004566:Electrodes; D005263:Femoral Artery / Q000473:pathology; D005268:Femoral Vein / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009431:Neural Conduction; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000473:pathology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted