Toward an Animal Model of Freely Moving Human

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，我已经 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 假肢和电脑游标。我现在认识到，一个重要的新研究方向势在必行，如果我们 是真正了解现实世界中运动的神经控制，并设计神经假体 大量的人。我质疑并致力于解决的基本假设是， 皮质-运动活动在不同的行为背景下是相同的，就像在黑暗中安静地坐着一样不同 没有移动眼睛或头部的房间(传统的实验环境)，并在 灯光、声音和身体姿势不断变化的大空间(建议的现实世界环境)。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， 它将成为自由活动的人类的动物模型。这是一个戏剧性的新的和不同的 方向，这是现在才有可能的，因为微电子技术和 这里提出了主要的新技术和实验范式。我提议建造一套新的 录音、无线遥测和行为监测技术，使这一新品牌的基本和 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，除了 记录最初的、可能非常令人惊讶的发现。如果成功，我期待着这个新的实验 范式和结果极大地改变了运动控制的基础神经科学研究，应用 神经科学/神经工程学，旨在设计坚固和高性能的神经假体，以及大型 患者群体的生活质量将通过恢复丧失的运动功能而显著改善。

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 by restoring lost motor function.