RI-Small: Statistical Decoding Models to Improve the Performance of Motor Cortical Brain-Machine Interfaces

RI-Small：提高运动皮质脑机接口性能的统计解码模型

• 批准号: 0916154
• 负责人: Wei Wu
• 金额: $ 13.56万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0916154&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RI; Small; Statistical; Decoding; Models

The goal of this project is to develop statistical models to accurately and efficiently decode population neuronal activity in the motor and premotor cortex. The study focuses on motor behavior as it is easily measured and strongly correlated with neuronal activity. Recent advances in motor cortical brain-machine interfaces have shown that research animals and paralyzed human patients were able to perform rudimentary actions with external devices such as robotic limbs and computer cursors. Neural decoding, which provides control commands to external devices, plays a key role in such interfaces by converting brain signals (e.g., spiking rates of a population of neurons) to kinematic states (e.g., hand position, hand movement direction).Current decoding models are often based on the strong assumption that the neural signal sequence is a stationary process. This assumption, however, does not take into account the significant dynamic variability of spiking activity over time. Moreover, these methods have either focused on decoding the entire trajectory or on the occurrence times of a few "landmarks" during the movement. Effective coupling of these two complementary strategies can be expected to improve the decoding performance by better exploiting the nature of the landmark-defined movement. This project will develop computational methods to address these two issues. For the non-stationarity, the research team will develop adaptive versions of state-of-the-art decoding methods such as particle filters and point process filters that can capture the varying patterns in neural signals and update the model accordingly. To couple trajectory decoding and time decoding, landmark times will be identified from the neural activity, and then incorporated into the kinematic model. The team will use simultaneous recordings from multi-electrode arrays in the primary motor cortex, the dorsal premotor cortex, and the ventral premotor cortex that were recorded during behavior or visuo-motor tasks. Improved decoding methods are expected to have significant impacts on neural prosthetics.

该项目的目标是开发统计模型，以准确有效地解码运动和前运动皮层中的群体神经元活动。 该研究重点关注运动行为，因为它很容易测量并且与神经元活动密切相关。 运动皮层脑机接口的最新进展表明，研究动物和瘫痪人类患者能够使用机器人肢体和计算机光标等外部设备执行基本动作。 神经解码向外部设备提供控制命令，通过将大脑信号（例如，神经元群的尖峰速率）转换为运动状态（例如，手的位置、手的运动方向），在此类接口中发挥着关键作用。当前的解码模型通常基于神经信号序列是平稳过程的强烈假设。 然而，这一假设并未考虑尖峰活动随时间的显着动态变化。此外，这些方法要么专注于解码整个轨迹，要么专注于运动过程中一些“地标”的出现时间。 这两种互补策略的有效耦合有望通过更好地利用地标定义的运动的性质来提高解码性能。 该项目将开发计算方法来解决这两个问题。 对于非平稳性，研究团队将开发最先进解码方法的自适应版本，例如粒子滤波器和点过程滤波器，可以捕获神经信号中的变化模式并相应地更新模型。为了将轨迹解码和时间解码结合起来，将从神经活动中识别出地标时间，然后将其合并到运动学模型中。 该团队将使用在行为或视觉运动任务期间记录的初级运动皮层、背侧前运动皮层和腹侧前运动皮层的多电极阵列的同步记录。 改进的解码方法预计将对神经修复产生重大影响。