Temporal structure of spinal cord stimulation for pain relief

Warren Grill’s group at Duke University used NeuroNexus 16- and 32-channel single-shank polytrodes to test their computational model of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in vivo. They performed acute recordings in the rat dorsal horn and identified individual neurons with responses to various levels of mechanical stimulation of the paw with and without SCS. John Gilbert et al. results in Brain Stimulation suggest that the temporal regularity, or lack thereof, of SCS can be tuned for efficacy, and that pain relief may be achieved not only by overall inhibition of firing rates, but also by changes in firing patterns.