Toward an Animal Model of Freely Moving Human

描述 摘要 我接受过电气工程师和系统神经生物学家的培训。在过去的十年里，我研究了运动皮质如何引导手臂的运动，以及这种神经活动如何被用来控制假肢和计算机光标。我现在认识到，如果我们要真正了解“现实世界”中运动的神经控制，并为大量人设计神经假体，就必须有一个新的主要研究方向。我质疑的基本假设是，皮质-运动活动在不同的行为背景下是相同的，不同的背景就像安静地坐在黑暗的房间里而不移动眼睛或头部(传统的实验设置)，以及在光线、声音和身体姿势不断变化的大空间中活跃地活动(拟议的“真实世界”设置)。我们必须开始对能够在大范围内自由活动的猴子进行电生理实验，这将成为人类自由活动的动物模型。这是一个非常新的和不同的方向，由于微电子技术的巨大进步以及这里提出的主要新技术和实验范式，这现在才是可信的。我提议建立一套新的记录、无线遥测和行为监测技术，以支持这种新的基础和应用神经科学研究。我们还将进行一套明确的神经生理学和神经假体实验，以突出这一新范式的力量和广泛的适用性，此外还将记录最初的、可能非常令人惊讶的发现。如果成功，我预计这一新的实验范式和结果将极大地改变运动控制、旨在设计健壮和高性能神经假体的应用神经科学/神经工程学的基础神经科学研究，以及生活质量将显著提高的大量患者群体。

DESCRIPTION Abstract I have trained as an electrical engineer and as a systems neurobiologist. Over the past ten years I have investigated how motor cortices guide arm movements and how this neural activity can be used to control prosthetic arms and computer cursors. I now recognize that a major new research direction is imperative if we are to truly understand the neural control of movement in the "real-world" and design neural prostheses for large numbers of people. The fundamental assumption which I call into question, and aim to address, is that cortical-motor activity is the same across behavioral contexts, contexts as different as sitting quietly in a dark room without moving ones eyes or head (conventional experimental setting) and actively moving around in a large space with lights, sounds and body posture constantly varying (the proposed "real world" setting). We must begin conducting electrophysiological experiments in monkeys able to freely move around in large spaces, which will serve as an animal model for freely moving humans. This is a dramatically new and different direction, which is only now plausible due to tremendous advances in microelectronics technology and the major new technological and experimental paradigms proposed here. I proposed to build a new suite of recording, wireless telemetery and behavioral monitoring technology to enable this new brand of basic and applied neuroscience investigation. We will also conduct a definitive set of neurophysiological and neural prosthetic experiments, to highlight the power and broad applicability of this new paradigm in addition to documenting initial, and likely highly surprising, discoveries. If successful, I anticipate this new experimental paradigm and results to greatly change basic neuroscience investigations of motor control, applied neuroscience/neuroengineering aimed at designing robust and high-performance neural prostheses, and large patient populations whose quality of life will be dramatically improved