A Low-Cost Microcontroller Based Stimulation System to Study Sensory Processing

Understanding the neural correlates of sensory processing such as touch and temperature sensation is important for basic and clinical neuroscience. In addition, to preserve perceptive functions such as touch, which has a critical role in the regulation of the movement, mapping the somatosensory cortex is critical in surgeries involving tumor and epileptogenic zone resection. Novel and low cost hardware solutions are needed that can help clinicians to study natural and pathological levels of behavior and map somatosensory cortex in an objective manner. In this study, a microcontroller-based system was developed which can deliver vibrotactile stimulation to all five fingers of the hand. The system also delivers hot and cold temperature sensation through stacked thermoelectric modules. In order to synchronize the stimulation onset with neural data which can be acquired with a bioamplifier simultaneously, the microcontroller transfers a trigger signal through its digital I/O port or via universal serial bus (USB) with low latency. Our preliminary results demonstrate that our system can be used to study sensory processing with improved temporal precision in an objective fashion.