Adaptive, beta-triggered stimulation vs continuous open-loop stimulation
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) treats motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease by delivering electrical pulses through an electrode implanted in a target such as the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Older devices stimulate continuously ("open-loop"), regardless of the patient's actual neural state. Newer closed-loop / adaptive systems instead sense the local field potential, watch for pathological beta-band (13–30 Hz) bursts associated with bradykinesia and rigidity, and fire stimulation only when the sensed burst amplitude crosses a programmed detection threshold.
This simulator generates a synthetic beta-band signal with randomly occurring bursts, lets stimulation suppress the burst envelope while it is delivered, and tracks the trade-off in real time: symptom control (how well the average beta burst amplitude is kept down), duty cycle and battery life (how much of the time the device is actually stimulating), and side-effect risk (which rises with unnecessary stimulation of tissue that did not need it).