Body-machine interfaces after spinal injury: rehabilitation and brain plasticity

 描述(由申请人提供)：尽管在脊髓损伤(SCI)患者的辅助技术领域取得了进展，但目前大多数控制计算机和轮椅的设备都是为了让用户尽可能少地付出体力，并且几乎没有注意到维持和加强在损伤中幸存下来的神经和肌肉资源。我们最近开发了一种新型的非侵入性体机接口(BMI)，使用放置在用户上半身的四个惯性测量单元(IMU)来连续控制二维计算机光标。对健康受试者的结果表明，利用IMU信号的冗余性提高了整体性能。在这项研究中，我们建议在脊髓损伤患者身上验证我们的结果，并确定在这一人群中练习个性化界面的上半身控制的康复效果。扩散张力磁共振成像(DTI)、光学跟踪以及力和功能临床评估的组合，将提供一个框架，根据辅助设备提供的任务测量来推断大脑结构的变化和运动障碍。此外，我们将展示脊髓损伤患者通过BMI练习改善或防止损伤后幸存下来的运动和神经资源退化的能力。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite progress in the field of assistive technologies for people who suffered an injury to the spinal cord (SCI), most of the current devices to control computers and wheelchairs are set in place to require as little physical effort as possible from the user, and little attention has been paid to maintaining and strengthening the neural and muscular resources that survived the injury. We recently developed a novel non-invasive body- machine interface (BMI) for the continuous control of a two-dimensional computer cursor using four inertial measurement units (IMUs) placed on the user's upper body. Results on healthy subjects indicate that taking advantage of the redundancy of the signals from the IMUs improved overall performance. In this study we propose to validate our results on people with SCI and determine the rehabilitative effects of practicing upper- body control of personalized interface in this population. A combination of diffusion tension magnetic resonance imaging (DTI), optical tracking, and force and functional clinical evaluations, will provide a framework fo inferring changes in brain structures and motor impairment from task measures provided by an assistive device. Moreover, we will demonstrate the ability of SCI patients to improve-or prevent the degradation of-the motor and neural resources that survived the injury through practice with a BMI.