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背后的神经元活动。从历史上看，对这一过程的研究在很大程度上受到以下事实的限制：自愿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该身体部位的运动产生的感觉反馈联系在一起。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例，用于直接检查自愿控制背后的神经元过程。 当大脑控制脑机接口时，神经元活动与身体的运动分离，转而致力于对界面的自愿控制。当神经元继续自主控制 BCI 时，原生肢体的运动可能会停止，并且 EMG 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不存在。因此，精心选择的脑机接口范例提供了前所未有的机会来检查神经元活动本身的自愿控制，与运动输出和感觉反馈无关。在这里，我们建议使用简单的 BCI 范式来研究自愿控制背后的神经元过程，该范式评估神经元在自愿控制新颖界面方面的单会话性能。我们的 BCI 范式评估以新模式协调任意选择的神经元小群活动的能力。具体来说，本提案旨在确定大脑自愿控制神经元的能力是否取决于：i）皮质区域（将比较运动区、前运动区和顶叶区），ii） 是否存在视觉和/或体感输入，以及 iii) 对神经轴不同水平的输出投影（将比较具有皮质-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）。 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么快。在某种程度上，这可能反映出对自愿控制过程本身的神经元活动的基本理解不足。因此，加深对这一基本过程的理解将导致改善神经假体装置以恢复失去的功能，并改善神经康复以帮助患有多种神经系统疾病（包括中风、肌萎缩侧索硬化症、多发性硬化症、脑或脊髓损伤和脑瘫）的患者恢复功能。