# HORNET  Center for Autonomic Nerve Recording and Stimulation Systems (CARSS)

> **NIH NIH U41** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2023 · $3,840,148

## Abstract

Despite a wide-ranging interest in performing clinical research for bioelectronic medicine applications, there are
no available open-architecture and open-source implantable systems for autonomic nerve stimulation and
recording. As a result, clinical researchers face significant technical, regulatory, and financial hurdles in getting
access to the implantable neuromodulation technologies that are required for performing these clinical studies.
There are several clinical closed-loop implantable neuromodulation systems presently available and they have
been helpful in supporting clinical research. However, in their current form, none are suitable for the bioelectronic
medicine applications, as they lack key functional modules for accessing the autonomic nerves; moreover, many
of them use closed architectures (e.g., the use of custom ASICs instead of commercial over-the-shelf
components) and proprietary software.
 Therefore, the overall objective of this HORNET Center for Autonomic Nerve Recording and Stimulation
Systems (CARSS) is to develop an open-architecture and open-source implantable system for autonomic nerve
stimulation and recording. We propose to develop the CARSS implantable system tailored for bioelectronic
medicine applications. The CARSS system includes an external charger and controller, implantable pulse
generator, and an assortment of interoperable and implantable leads for stimulation and sensing. As such, this
seamlessly unified system will enable closed-loop sensing and neuromodulation, providing experimental
flexibility and control to the clinical research community.
 In order to make the developed system and its components available to the community, our CARSS Center
will engage with the user community and facilitate technology dissemination by providing system templates and
libraries (along with supporting technical documentation) as well as training. The central goal of our
dissemination approach is to collaborate with the community to reduce the technical, regulatory, and financial
barriers to entry into bioelectronic medicine research and thereby accelerate the development and translation of
novel bioelectronic medical therapies. We have assembled a collaborative team from industry and academia to
achieve a CARSS system suitable for use in human clinical research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10706610
- **Project number:** 5U41NS129514-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Raja Edward Hitti
- **Activity code:** U41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $3,840,148
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-23 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10706610

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10706610, HORNET  Center for Autonomic Nerve Recording and Stimulation Systems (CARSS) (5U41NS129514-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10706610. Licensed CC0.

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