Pulsatile stimulation is the main form of electrical stimulation used clinically (neural implants, brain mapping for epileptics, etc.) and for causal studies of neural connectivity. This work aimed to use pulsatile stimulation through an adaptive, closed-loop stimulation system that can learn to use multi-site electrical stimulation to control the pattern of activity of a population of neurons. The system recorded activity of populations of 5-15 multiunit neurons and delivered spatially-patterned electrical stimulation to 4-16 sites. The closed-loop learning system iteratively updated the pattern of stimulation to reduce differences between observed and target neural responses. In silico and in vivo experiments showed that patterns could be produces within 15 minutes of learning and was robust to drift in neural responses.

Tafazoli, S., MacDowell, C. J., Che, Z., Letai, K. C., Steinhardt, C. R., & Buschman, T. J. (2020). Learning to control the brain through adaptive closed-loop patterned stimulation. Journal of Neural Engineering, 17(5), 056007. Here