Voluntary control of neuronal activity

神经元活动的自主控制

• 批准号: 8938810
• 负责人: MARC H SCHIEBER
• 金额: $ 39.66万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-15 至 2020-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8938810
• 关键词: Affect; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Anterior; Area; Axon; Basal Ganglia; Body part; Brain; Brain Stem; Cell Nucleus; Cells; Cerebellum; Cerebral Palsy; Cerebral cortex; Corticospinal Tracts; Coupled; Development; Devices; Dorsal; Goals; Individual; Knowledge; Lead; Learning; Limb structure; Mono-S; Motion; Motor; Motor Cortex; Motor Neurons; Motor output; Movement; Multiple Sclerosis; Muscle; Muscle Contraction; Neuraxis; Neurons; Neurorehabilitation; Output; Parietal; Pathway interactions; Patients; Pattern; Performance; Pontine structure; Process; Production; Recovery of Function; Red nucleus structure; Reticular Formation; Seminal; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Spinal; Spinal Cord; Spinal cord injury; Stroke; Synapses; Technology; Testing; Visual; Work; base; brain computer interface; grasp; hand grasp; improved; kinematics; limb movement; mind control; nervous system disorder; neuroprosthesis; novel; prosthetic hand; public health relevance; research study; response; restoration; sensory feedback; sensory input; somatosensory; stem; visual feedback; visual information

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term goal of the present project is to understand the neuronal activity underlying the process of voluntary control. Historically, investigating this process has been constrained largely by the fact that voluntary motor output is naturally coupled to motion of a body part, to the muscle contractions moving that body part, and to the sensory feedback produced by the motion of that body part. Now, as knowledge of these relationships is being harnessed to control brain computer interfaces (BCIs), BCIs themselves provide a new paradigm for directly examining the neuronal processes underlying voluntary control. As the brain controls a BCI, neuronal activity becomes dissociated from movement of the body and devoted instead to voluntary control of the interface. Movement of the native limb may cease, and EMG activity may be absent as neurons continue to control the BCI voluntarily. Hence proprioceptive feedback and visual observation of limb movement may be absent as well. Carefully chosen BCI paradigms thus provide an unprecedented opportunity to examine voluntary control of neuronal activity per se, dissociated from motor output and sensory feedback. Here we propose to investigate the neuronal processes underlying voluntary control using a simple BCI paradigm that assesses the single-session performance of neurons in voluntarily controlling a novel interface. Our BCI paradigm assesses the ability to coordinate the activity of small ensembles of arbitrarily-selected neurons in novel patterns. Specifically, th present proposal aims to determine whether the brain's ability to control neurons voluntarily depends: i) on the cortical area (motor, premotor, and parietal areas will be compared), ii) on the presence or absence of visual and/or somatosensory inputs, and iii) on output projections to different levels of the neuraxis (neurons with cortico-cortical axons, axons projecting to the brainstem, cortico-spinal axons, and cortico-motoneuronal connections will be compared). Current efforts at neuro-prosthetic control of artificial hands, while impressive, have not progressed as rapidly as might have been expected. In part this may reflect inadequate basic understanding of the neuronal activity underlying the process of voluntary control per se. Thus, improved understanding of this fundamental process will lead both to improved neuro-prosthetic devices for restoration of lost function and to improved neuro-rehabilitation for functional recovery in patients affected by a wide variety of neurological diseases including stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, brain or spinal cord injury, and cerebral palsy.

 描述（由申请人提供）：本项目的长期目标是了解自愿控制过程中的神经元活动。从历史上看，研究这个过程在很大程度上受到这样一个事实的限制，即自主运动输出自然地与身体部位的运动、移动该身体部位的肌肉收缩以及由该身体部位的运动产生的感觉反馈相耦合。现在，随着这些关系的知识被利用来控制脑机接口（BCI），BCI本身提供了一个新的范式，直接检查神经元的过程背后的自愿控制。 当大脑控制BCI时，神经元活动变得与身体的运动分离，而是致力于界面的自主控制。自体肢体的运动可能停止，并且由于神经元继续自主地控制BCI，因此EMG活动可能不存在。因此，肢体运动的本体感受反馈和视觉观察也可能不存在。因此，精心选择的BCI范式提供了一个前所未有的机会，检查自主控制的神经元活动本身，从运动输出和感觉反馈。在这里，我们提出了一个简单的BCI范式，评估单届性能的神经元在自愿控制一个新的接口，调查的神经元过程的基础上自愿控制。我们的BCI范式评估的能力，以协调活动的任意选择的神经元在新的模式的小合奏。具体地说，目前的建议旨在确定大脑控制神经元的能力是否取决于：i）皮质区（运动区，运动前区和顶叶区将进行比较），ii） 视觉和/或躯体感觉输入的存在或不存在，以及iii）对不同水平的神经轴的输出投射（将比较具有皮质-皮质轴突、投射到脑干的轴突、皮质-脊髓轴突和皮质-运动神经元连接的神经元）。 目前在人造手的神经假肢控制方面的努力虽然令人印象深刻，但进展并不像预期的那样快。在某种程度上，这可能反映了对自主控制过程本身的神经元活动的基本理解不足。因此，对该基本过程的更好理解将导致用于恢复丧失的功能的改进的神经假体装置和用于受多种神经系统疾病影响的患者的功能恢复的改进的神经康复，所述神经系统疾病包括中风、肌萎缩性侧索硬化、多发性硬化、脑或脊髓损伤和脑瘫。