Feasibility of a direct brain-to-muscle upper-limb neuroprosthesis

直接脑到肌肉上肢神经假体的可行性

• 批准号: 8677110
• 负责人: Dawn Marie Taylor
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: LOUIS STOKES CLEVELAND VA MEDICAL CENTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2018-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8677110
• 关键词: Activities of Daily Living; Animals; Atrophic; Brain; Brain Stem; Bypass; Cervical spinal cord injury; Contracts; Effectiveness; Electrodes; Encapsulated; Freedom; Hand; Implant; Individual; Injury; Joints; Juice; Knowledge; Learning; Left; Limb structure; Longevity; Methods; Microelectrodes; Modeling; Monkeys; Motion; Motor; Motor Cortex; Movement; Muscle; Musculoskeletal; Neck; Neurons; Paralysed; Pattern; Performance; Persons; Positioning Attribute; Process; Quality Control; Rewards; Signal Transduction; Spinal Cord; Spinal cord injury; System; Technology; Testing; Time; Training; Translating; Upper Extremity; Upper limb movement; Veterans; Well in self; analytical method; arm; arm function; arm movement; compare effectiveness; flexibility; improved; kinematics; limb movement; mind control; neuromuscular stimulation; neuroprosthesis; neurotransmission; novel; prevent; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; sensor; simulation

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Implanted neuromuscular stimulation systems capable of restoring full arm and hand motion have now been implemented in people paralyzed below the neck due to spinal cord injury. Intracortical microelectrode arrays are also now being tested in other paralyzed individuals for chronically recording neural activity in the motor cortex. By combining these two technologies, we can potentially develop complete systems that will bypass damage in the spinal cord and restore natural movement by thought to people with spinal cord injuries. However, if the brain signals are decoded into kinematic aspects of movements (e.g. limb position, velocity, joint angles etc.), then we still have to develop additional technology to convert those kinematic commands into the muscle stimulation patterns needed to generate the desired movement. This is not a trivial task. In this study, we will evaluate the alternative approach of retraining the bain to control the muscle stimulators directly, therefore bypassing the challenging and still open problem of how best to translate one's intended movement into the muscle activation levels that will generate those movements. Several studies have shown that local field potentials and the firing rates of motor cortical neurons correlate with recorded muscle activity in able- bodied animals. However, in this study we are specifically testing if motor cortex can be retrained to command the muscle activation levels needed to generate the desired motion of a paralyzed limb where only a subset of the normal muscles can be stimulated and muscles have atrophied after paralysis. Since intracortical recording electrodes are not always capable of detecting firin of individual neurons as the body encapsulates the electrodes over time, we will also compare the effectiveness of using firing rates of the recorded neurons to control the muscle stimulators versus using the more robustly recorded local field potentials to control muscle stimulators. The novel decoding methods we will use in this study can be applied clinically to paralyzed individuals and not just able-bodied animals. In aims 1-2, monkeys will be trained to use the firing rates of ensembles of motor and premotor cortical neurons to control the activation levels of subsets of muscles in a real-time musculoskeletal simulation of a paralyzed arm. The monkeys will be given juice rewards when they successfully move the simulated arm to different targets. In aim1 the monkeys will control movements of the model arm in the horizontal plane by controlling the activation levels of six muscles. In aim 2 external forces will be applied to the model arm. The animals will have to alter the muscle activation levels (by alternating their neural firing) in order to still get the arm to the targets. Aim 3 will determine if the same level of arm control seen in aims 1 & 2 can also be achieved using only local field potentials recorded from intracortical microelectrode arrays.

描述（由申请人提供）： 由于脊髓损伤，现已在瘫痪的人中实施了能够恢复全手臂和手运动的植入的神经肌肉刺激系统。现在，在其他瘫痪的个体中，还在其他瘫痪的个体中测试了皮质内微电极阵列，以记录运动皮质中的神经活动。通过结合这两种技术，我们可以开发完整的系统，这些系统将绕过脊髓中的损害，并通过思考脊髓损伤的人来恢复自然运动。但是，如果将大脑信号解码为运动的运动学方面（例如肢体位置，速度，关节角等），那么我们仍然必须开发其他技术来将这些运动学命令转换为所需的肌肉刺激模式，以产生所需的运动。这不是一项琐碎的任务。在这项研究中，我们将评估替代贝恩直接控制肌肉刺激剂的替代方法，从而绕开了如何最好地将一个人的预期运动转化为将产生这些运动的肌肉激活水平的具有挑战性且仍在开放的问题。几项研究表明，局部田间电位和运动皮质神经元的发射速率与能够身体的动物中记录的肌肉活性相关。但是，在这项研究中，我们专门测试了是否可以重新训练运动皮层以命令产生瘫痪的肢体所需运动所需的肌肉激活水平，在该肢体中只能刺激正常肌肉的一部分，并且肌肉在瘫痪后萎缩。由于心脏内记录电极并不总是能够检测到人体随着时间的推移封装电极的燃料，因此我们还将比较使用记录的神经元的发射速率来控制肌肉刺激剂，而不是使用更强大的局部田野电位来控制肌肉刺激者，以控制肌肉刺激者。我们将在这项研究中使用的新型解码方法可以临床应用于瘫痪的个体，而不仅仅是身体健康的动物。在AIMS 1-2中，将培训猴子，以使用运动和前皮质神经元的触发速率来控制瘫痪手臂的实时肌肉骨骼模拟中肌肉亚群的激活水平。当猴子成功将模拟臂转移到不同目标时，将为果汁奖励。在AIM1中，猴子将通过控制六种肌肉的激活水平来控制水平面中模型臂的运动。在AIM 2外力将应用于模型组。动物将不得不改变肌肉激活水平（通过交替 发射）为了使手臂达到目标。 AIM 3将确定是否相同的手臂 在AIM 1和2中看到的控制也只能使用从物质内微电极阵列中记录的局部场电位来实现。