Behavior of kilohertz-frequency carriers

In collaboration with researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Washington University School of Medicine, and the Medical University of Vienna, we investigated how kilohertz-frequency (KHF) waveforms may facilitate motor function recovery after paralysis using non-invasive neuromodulation targeting the spinal cord.

This study involved 25 unimpaired participants and used peripheral nerve stimulation, lumbar tSCS, and cervical tSCS, combined with computational modeling. Our group focused on generating and leveraging a peripheral nerve stimulation digital twin, which showed that KHF waveforms negatively impact the processes required to elicit action potentials, thereby increasing response thresholds and biasing the recruitment towards efferent fibers. Our simulations indicate that KHF waveforms applied in humans activate fibers through summation processes and that membrane depolarization by the positive phases is sequentially interrupted by the negative phases, thus delaying action potential generation towards the last cycle at threshold.

In this study we also demonstrated that these findings apply to tSCS. Specifically, lumbar tSCS preferentially recruits afferent fibers, while cervical tSCS favors efferent fibers.

The article is available as preprint here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.26.603982v1