Equipment Proposal: Early Reach Plans in Parietal Cortex: Toward a Cortical Prosthetic for Arm Movements

该合同为购买设备和仪器提供资金，这些设备和仪器将形成一个新的实验设施的基础，用于在加州理工学院的神经形态工程工程研究中心研究神经义肢的科学。该设备被用于研究大脑皮层如何规划伸臂运动。目标是了解计划最初形成的感觉-运动界面的潜在神经生物学原理。这种理解是皮质控制假肢装置的基础。当猴子到达记忆中的视觉目标时，该设备将通过同时记录许多神经元的电活动（使用植入的多电极阵列）来探索后顶叶皮层的顶叶到达区神经元如何计划真实和虚拟的手臂运动。然后，电信号将用于驱动计算机模型/模拟中的虚拟手臂。了解神经元如何工作来移动手臂将是控制真正的假肢手臂的基础。

This award provides funds to purchase equipment and instrumentation that will form the basis for a new experimental facility for investigating the science of neural prosthetic arms at the Engineering Research Center for Neuromorphic Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. The equipment is being used in research to investigate how the cerebral cortex plans reaching-arms movements. The goal is to understand the underlying neurobiology of the sensory-motor interface where plans first form. This understanding is the basis for cortically controlled prosthetic devices. The equipment will enable exploration of how parietal reach region neurons in the posterior parietal cortex plan real and virtual arm movements by recording electrical activity from many neurons simultaneously (using an implanted multi-electrode array) while monkeys reach to remembered visual targets. The electrical signals will then be used to drive a virtual arm in a computer model/simulation. The understanding of how the neurons work to move the arm will be the basis for control of a real prosthetic arm.