Robust neuromorphic coupled oscillators for adaptive pacemakers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust neuromorphic neural oscillator model implemented on mixed-signal hardware, demonstrating its potential for adaptive, low-power cardiac pacemakers that can reliably control heart rhythms despite hardware variability.

Contribution

It presents a new robust spiking neural network model of coupled oscillators implemented on neuromorphic hardware, suitable for adaptive pacemaker applications.

Findings

Successfully controlled oscillator frequency and phase despite hardware variability.

Validated the model with real-world ECG and respiration data from dogs.

Demonstrated the system's robustness on a noisy, low-precision neuromorphic substrate.

Abstract

Neural coupled oscillators are a useful building block in numerous models and applications. They were analyzed extensively in theoretical studies and more recently, in biologically realistic simulations of spiking neural networks. The advent of mixed-signal analog/digital neuromorphic electronic circuits provides new means for implementing neural coupled oscillators on compact low-power spiking neural network hardware platforms. However, their implementation on this noisy, low-precision and inhomogeneous computing substrate raises new challenges with regards to stability and controllability. In this work, we present a robust, spiking neural network model of neural coupled oscillators and validate it with an implementation on a mixed-signal neuromorphic processor. We demonstrate its robustness showing how to reliably control and modulate the oscillator's frequency and phase shift, despite the variability of the silicon synapse and neuron properties. We show how this ultra-low power neural processing system can be used to build an adaptive cardiac pacemaker modulating the heart rate with respect to the respiration phases and compare it with surface ECG and respiratory signal recordings of dogs at rest. The implementation of our model in neuromorphic electronic hardware shows its robustness on a highly variable substrate and extends the toolbox for applications requiring rhythmic outputs such as pacemakers.