Signal quality of endovascular electroencephalography.

Abstract

Objective, Approach. A growing number of prototypes for diagnosing and treating neurological and psychiatric diseases are predicated on access to high-quality brain signals, which typically requires surgically opening the skull. Where endovascular navigation previously transformed the treatment of cerebral vascular malformations, we now show that it can provide access to brain signals with substantially higher signal quality than scalp recordings. While endovascular signals were known to be larger in amplitude than scalp signals, our analysis in rabbits borrows a standard technique from communication theory to show endovascular signals also have up to 100× better signal-to-noise ratio. With a viable minimally-invasive path to high-quality brain signals, patients with brain diseases could one day receive potent electroceuticals through the bloodstream, in the course of a brief outpatient procedure.