Patent Document ID: 20080177196
Application ID: 11625230
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of automatically positioning an electrode disposed inside a brain, the method comprising: moving an electrode along a predetermined path of travel until a neural signal having a current signal quality metric that is greater than or equal to a minimum threshold value and comprising action potentials is detected; after the neural signal is detected, moving the electrode to a plurality of locations along the predetermined path and after each move, recording a sample of the neural signal; detecting action potentials in the neural signal of each of the recorded samples; classifying the action potentials of each of the recorded samples into classes; calculating a first signal quality metric for each of the classes; for each of the recorded samples, identifying a dominant class; for each of the action potentials of the dominant class of each of the recorded samples, determining a second signal quality metric; modeling an isolation curve as a function of the second signal quality metric for each of the action potentials of the dominant class of a first portion of the recorded samples and the locations of the plurality of locations where each of the recorded samples of the first portion of the recorded samples were recorded; determining a move distance from a current electrode position to a location along the modeled isolation curve that the modeled isolation curve indicates will improve signal quality; and as long as the move distance is greater than a predetermined minimum move distance threshold, moving the electrode the move distance to a new electrode position along the predetermined path and including the new electrode position in the plurality of locations, recording a new sample of the neural signal and including the new sample in the recorded samples, detecting action potentials in the new sample of the neural signal, classifying the action potentials of the new sample into classes, calculating the first signal quality metric for each of the classes, identifying the dominant class, for each of the action potentials of the dominant class, determining the second signal quality metric, modeling the isolation curve as a function of the second signal quality metric of each of the action potentials in the dominant class of a second portion of the recorded samples and the locations of the plurality of locations where each of the recorded samples of the second portion of the recorded samples were recorded, and determining the move distance from the new electrode position to a location along the modeled isolation curve that the modeled isolation curve indicates will improve signal quality.