Evaluation of Haptic Sensation and Object Recognition using Transcutaneous Nerve Stimulation

使用经皮神经刺激评估触觉和物体识别

• 批准号: 9758900
• 负责人: Luis Vargas
• 金额: $ 3.69万
• 依托单位: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9758900
• 关键词: Address; Affect; Amputees; Artificial Arm; Attention; Biological; Caring; Cognitive; Communication; Coupled; Cues; Electric Stimulation; Electrodes; Ensure; Esthesia; Evaluation; Feedback; Fiber; Freedom; Goals; Hand; Human; Implant; Individual; Intuition; Location; Maintenance; Medial; Motor; Movement; Muscle; Nature; Nerve; Nerve Fibers; Neurologic; Operative Surgical Procedures; Outcome; Pattern; Perception; Performance; Peripheral Nerve Stimulation; Procedures; Property; Prosthesis; Public Health; Reporting; Research; Robot; Sensory; Shapes; Side; Somatosensory Cortex; Source; Stimulus; Structure of ulnar nerve; System; Techniques; Time; Touch sensation; Training; Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation; Upper arm; Variant; Visual; afferent nerve; arm; base; biceps brachii muscle; clinical application; clinical translation; density; experience; grasp; haptics; improved; median nerve; motor control; neural implant; object recognition; pressure; prosthesis control; prosthetic hand; rate of change; relating to nervous system; sensor; sensory feedback; success

ABSTRACT Haptic sensory feedback is critical to fine motor control and object recognitions. A loss of this somatosensation can severely affect our ability of dexterous object interaction and manipulation. A majority of prosthetic hand users often rely on substituted sensory information from other sources, such as visual or audio cues. As a result, the prosthetic hand movement is slow, and object grasp/release requires continuous cognitive attention. Recently, direct stimulations of the peripheral nerve or somatosensory cortex via neural implants have shown great promise in evoking somatotopically-matched feedback. However, several major hurdles limit wide clinical applications, including the lack of long-term stability of the implanted system, the surgery procedures coupled with the extensive post-surgery care, and specialized system maintenance. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop non-invasive approaches that can elicit somatotopically-matched sensations to prosthetic arm users. The objective of my proposed research is to develop non-invasive transcutaneous nerve stimulation approaches that can provide stable haptic feedback to arm amputees and allow them to recognize different object properties (e.g., stiffness, size, shape, and location) from the evoked sensations. The proposed research will facilitate my long-term goal of developing clinically applicable approaches that can enable closed-loop human-machine interactions. Specifically, transcutaneous nerve stimulation can elicit haptic sensations in the phantom hand, by delivering precisely controlled electrical current that can activate proximal segments of the median and ulnar nerves. This approach allows us to activate different portions of the sensory nerve fibers transcutaneously and elicit spatially localized haptic sensations with graded intensity of sensation as shown in our lab. Building on the existing findings, I propose the following research aims: 1) to characterize how the haptic sensations are combined from concurrent nerve stimulations at different locations; and 2) to evaluate the recognition performance of object properties based on elicited haptic sensations with a prosthetic hand. To execute my research aims, I plan to attach a high-density grid electrodes on the medial side of the upper arm beneath the biceps muscle belly. Controlled electrical current with various parameters will then be simultaneously delivered to different pairs of electrodes. The perceived sensations will be quantified, including the changes in spatial location of the sensation and the stability/repeatability of the perceived sensation. I will then deliver current profiles with encoded object properties to different electrode pairs when an articulated prosthetic hand interacts with different objects. The performance of the object recognition will be evaluated. Overall, the outcomes can help deliver accurate and stable haptic sensations to prosthetic hand users, allowing intuitive and closed-loop control, and enhancing embodiment during prosthetic use. The non-invasive nature of my approach also has a great potential for readily clinical translations with a potentially high user-acceptance rate.

抽象的 触觉反馈对于精细运动控制和物体识别至关重要。这种躯体感觉的丧失 会严重影响我们灵巧的物体交互和操纵的能力。大多数假手 用户经常依赖其他来源的替代感官信息，例如视觉或音频提示。因此， 假手运动缓慢，物体抓取/释放需要持续的认知注意力。 最近，通过神经植入物直接刺激周围神经或体感皮层已经表明 在唤起躯体匹配反馈方面有着巨大的希望。然而，几个主要障碍限制了广泛的临床 应用，包括植入系统缺乏长期稳定性、手术程序耦合 广泛的术后护理和专门的系统维护。因此，迫切需要 开发非侵入性方法，可以为假肢使用者带来体感匹配的感觉。 我提出的研究的目的是开发非侵入性经皮神经刺激方法 可以为手臂截肢者提供稳定的触觉反馈，让他们识别不同的物体属性 （例如，硬度、大小、形状和位置）来自诱发的感觉。拟议的研究将有助于我 开发临床适用的方法以实现闭环人机的长期目标 互动。具体来说，经皮神经刺激可以通过以下方式引起幻手的触觉： 提供精确控制的电流，可以激活正中和尺骨的近端节段 神经。这种方法使我们能够经皮激活感觉神经纤维的不同部分， 如我们实验室所示，以分级的感觉强度引发空间局部触觉。建立在 根据现有的研究结果，我提出以下研究目标：1）描述触觉的特征 由不同位置同时发生的神经刺激组合而成； 2）评估认可度 基于假手引发的触觉来表现对象属性。 为了实现我的研究目标，我计划在上臂内侧附着一个高密度网格电极 二头肌肌腹下方。然后，具有各种参数的受控电流将同时 传递到不同的电极对。感知到的感觉将被量化，包括变化 感觉的空间位置和感知感觉的稳定性/可重复性。然后我将提供当前 当铰接式假手交互时，具有不同电极对的编码对象属性的配置文件 与不同的物体。将评估对象识别的性能。总体而言，结果可以 帮助为假手用户提供准确、稳定的触觉，实现直观和闭环 控制并增强假肢使用过程中的体现。我的方法的非侵入性本质还有一个 易于临床翻译的巨大潜力以及潜在的高用户接受率。