Patent ID: 7471974

Claim:
A method for planning stimulation of hyper/hypometabolic cortical areas, the method comprising: simulating a field distribution for a stimulator relative to a position of the stimulator; determining a stimulation area for the stimulator relative to a position of the stimulator; determining functional anatomical patient data; determining structural anatomical patient data; navigationally registering the functional anatomical data with the structural anatomical data such that the functional anatomical data are available for navigation; based on the functional anatomical data, detecting positions of the hyper/hypometabolic cortical areas in a patient's anatomy; determining a position of a stimulator; navigationally registering the stimulation area of the stimulator; at least one of (i) registering or (ii) referencing the position of the hyper/hypometabolic cortical areas with respect to the position of the stimulator; determining an optimal positioning for the stimulator on the basis of relative positional information of the hyper/hypometabolic cortical areas and the stimulation area of the stimulator; and displaying the optimal positioning for the stimulator.