NET-TEN: a silicon neuromorphic network for low-latency detection of seizures in local field potentials

Therapeutic intervention in neurological disorders still relies heavily on pharmacological solutions, while the treatment of patients with drug resistance remains an open challenge. This is particularly true for patients with epilepsy, 30% of whom are refractory to medications. Implantable devices for chronic recording and electrical modulation of brain activity have proved a viable alternative in such cases. To operate, the device should detect the relevant electrographic biomarkers from Local Field Potentials (LFPs) and determine the right time for stimulation. To enable timely interventions, the ideal device should attain biomarker detection with low latency while operating under low power consumption to prolong the battery life. Neuromorphic networks have progressively gained reputation as low-latency low-power computing systems, which makes them a promising candidate as processing core of next-generation implantable neural interfaces. Here we introduce a fully-analog neuromorphic device implemented in CMOS technology for analyzing LFP signals in an in vitro model of acute ictogenesis. We show that the system can detect ictal and interictal events with ms-latency and with high precision, consuming on average 3.50 nW during the task. Our work paves the way to a new generation of brain implantable devices for personalized closed-loop stimulation for epilepsy treatment.