Artifact Identification and Mitigation Strategies for Longitudinal Neural Data Collection Onboard the Medtronic
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Recent advances in deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have enabled the ability to capture continuous neural recordings concurrently with stimulation therapy in the background of everyday life. These recordings provide the opportunity to investigate neural biomarkers of various behaviors or clinical status. However, they are susceptible to artifacts that can obscure and limit our ability to interpret neural signals. In a cohort of 23 patients who underwent DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with the Medtronic Percept device, we identified an artifact in longitudinal neural recordings that occurs when the detected voltage exceeds the device's maximum sensing capabilities. When such an event occurs, the device inserts a flag value in the neural power stream. We found that overvoltage events are significantly more common in patients implanted with legacy Medtronic 3387 leads than those with newer Medtronic SenSight leads. We demonstrate a best practice, principled strategy for correcting samples affected by overvoltage events to preserve the ability to analyze the data. Finally, in a subset of patients who wore an Oura Ring concurrently with neural recordings (N=14), we found that overvoltage events were more likely during physical activity, suggesting that movement artifacts may elevate low-frequency power regardless of lead model.
