January 2016
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Motivation Electrical stimulation of the brain is increasingly used as a strategy to alleviate the symptoms of a range of neurological disorders, and as a possible means to artificially inject information into neural circuits, e.g. towards bidirectional neural prostheses [1]. Conventionally, stimulation of neuronal networks explicitly or implicitly assumes that the response to repeated constant stimuli is predictable. The measured response, however, typically results from interaction with additional neuronal activity not controlled by the stimulus [2]. Constant stimuli are therefore not optimal to reliably induce specific responses. Yet, without suitable models of the interaction between stimulus and ongoing activity it is not possible to adjust individual stimuli such that a defined response feature is achieved optimally.