Voluntary control of neuronal activity

 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潜在的神经元活动。从历史上看，研究这一过程在很大程度上受到这样一个事实的限制，即自愿运动输出与身体部位的运动、运动身体部位的肌肉收缩以及身体部位运动产生的感觉反馈自然地联系在一起。现在，随着这些关系的知识被用来控制脑机接口(BCI)，BCI本身提供了一种新的范式，直接检查自愿控制背后的神经元过程。当大脑控制BCI时，神经元的活动与身体的运动分离，转而致力于对界面的自愿控制。当神经元继续自愿地控制脑机接口时，自然肢体的运动可能会停止，肌电活动可能会消失。因此，本体感觉反馈和肢体运动的视觉观察也可能缺失。因此，精心选择的脑机接口范例提供了一个前所未有的机会来检查神经元活动本身的自愿控制，将其与运动输出和感觉反馈分开。在这里，我们建议使用一个简单的BCI范式来研究自愿控制背后的神经元过程，该范式评估了神经元在自愿控制新界面时的单节表现。我们的脑机接口范式评估了在新的模式中协调任意选择的神经元的小集合的活动的能力。具体地说，目前的建议旨在确定大脑自愿控制神经元的能力是否取决于：i)大脑皮层区域(运动、运动前和顶叶区域将被比较)，ii) 有无视觉和/或躯体感觉输入，以及iii)向神经轴不同水平的输出投射(具有皮质-皮质轴突的神经元、投射到脑干的轴突、皮质-脊髓轴突和皮质-运动神经元连接将被比较)。目前在人工手的神经假体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。在一定程度上，这可能反映了对自愿控制过程本身潜在的神经元活动的基本了解不足。因此，对这一基本过程的更好的理解将导致改善神经假体装置以恢复丧失的功能，并改善神经康复以恢复患者的功能，这些患者受到各种神经疾病的影响，包括中风、肌萎缩侧索硬化症、多发性硬化症、脑或脊髓损伤和脑性瘫痪。

 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.