Optimizing microstimulation to restore lost somatosensation

描述(申请人提供)：神经性受损的受试者失去感觉和运动功能会导致毁灭性的生活质量。在过去的十年里，布林机器接口(BMI)的技术水平已经达到了令人印象深刻的发展状态，但几乎所有的设备都完全依赖于视觉反馈。BMI可以恢复运动障碍个体使用意志控制的神经信号进行动作的能力。然而，这些发展忽略了体感反馈在运动控制中的关键重要性。BMI的躯体感觉恢复可能是这一领域最重要的发展。这项工作的首要目标是设计一种体感假体，以恢复感觉受损的受试者的触觉感觉。我们的方法是新颖的，在许多方面都具有重要意义。首先，我们将比较在啮齿类动物的胡须-Barel系统中，皮质下结构和皮质结构中刺激的效果。我们预计，皮质下刺激将受益于更简单的局部信号编码和上游电路提供的自然处理的组合，而皮质结构将受益于相对容易的访问。其次，我们将比较为在初级躯体感觉皮质(S1)产生活动而优化的刺激序列的有效性，该活动密切模拟相应的自然驱动活动，并优化NE以最大限度地将信息传递到皮质。在觉醒、被动和主动感觉状态下，我们将在完整的和去传入的动物中这样做。这种新的优化方法应该允许动物在几乎不需要训练的情况下解释人工刺激，并容易地推广到新的背景。虽然该提案解决了现有BMI最重要的局限性之一，即缺乏体感反馈，但它是由坚实的神经工程原则驱动的，这些原则可能会对临床应用中的神经刺激和神经调节产生总体影响。 PI提供了工程学和神经科学专业知识的有效结合，在BMI研究方面建立了跟踪记录，因此是唯一有资格开展这项工作的机构。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Lost sensory and motor function in neurologically impaired subjects leads to a devastating quality of life. The state of the art in Brin Machine Interfaces (BMIs), which restore the ability of motor impaired individuals to make movements using volitionally controlled neural signals, has reached an impressive state of development in the past decade, but virtually all rely exclusively on visual feedback. However, these developments overlook the critical importance of somatosensory feedback in motor control. The restoration of somatosensation in BMIs is likely to be the most important development in this field. The overarching goal of the work proposed here is to design a somatosensory prosthesis to restore tactile sensation to sensory impaired subjects. Our approach is novel and significant in a number of respects. First, we will compare the efficac of stimulation in subcortical to that in cortical structures in the rodent's whisker-­--barel system. We expect that subcortical stimulation will benefit from the combination of simpler local signal encoding and the natural processing provided by upstream circuits, while cortical structures will benefit from the relative ease of access. Second, we will compar the efficacy of stimulus trains optimized to produce activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) that closely mimic that of the corresponding naturally driven activity to nes optimized to maximize information transfer to cortex. We will do so in intact and in de-­afferented animals during aroused, passive and active sensing states. This novel optimization approach should allow the animal to interpret the artificial stimulation with little t no training and to generalize readily to novel contexts. While the proposal addresses what is arguably one of the most important limitations of existing BMIs, namely the lack of somatosensory feedback, it is driven by solid neural engineering principles that may have overarching impact on neurostimulation and neuromodulation in clinical applications. The PI offers a potent combination of expertise in engineering and neuroscience, has established track records in BMI research, and is therefore uniquely qualified to carry out the work.