Stimulation-artifact handling (read–write interleaving)

The set of techniques that let a device record microvolt-scale neural signals while it injects stimulation currents that are orders of magnitude larger and saturate the recording front-end. Approaches include temporal interleaving (blanking the amplifier during and briefly after each pulse), sample-and-hold or fast-recovery amplifier designs, dedicated hardware artifact suppression, and post-hoc template subtraction of the stereotyped artifact waveform.

This is the enabling technology for truly concurrent bidirectional BCI. The core tension is that stimulation and clean recording compete for the same time and the same electronics: aggressive blanking guarantees clean reads but leaves gaps in the neural record, whereas trying to record through the artifact risks corrupting spike detection with residual transients. The chosen balance shapes how tightly the sensory-feedback and motor-decoding halves of a loop can be run together.