Vagus Nerve Stimulation Triggered by Machine Learning–Based Seizure Detection: Initial Implementation and Evaluation

For most of the history of epilepsy, pharmacologic, surgical, and diet-based treatments were the only therapeutic options available to patients with refractory epilepsy. In 1997, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) as an adjunctive therapy for the treatment of refractory seizures; the vagus nerve stimulator became the –rst implantable device for the treatment of epilepsy (Ben-Menachem 2002; Schachter 1998). The VNS pulse generator is implanted in an infraclavicular, subcutaneous pocket and delivers stimuli to the midcervical portion of the left vagus nerve.