NCS-FO: Sensory-Motor Integration via Recording and Stimulating Arm Nerves

大多数正在进行的研究，以开发先进的手和手臂假肢，使截肢的个人执行高度灵巧的运动，并在世界上的物体的感觉功能已经分离的运动性能从物体的感觉。然而，在具有正常能力的个体中，感觉和运动信息被整合。该项目的目标是在截肢者身上创造出与正常人更相似的运动和感觉能力。特别是，我们的目标是了解如何最好地利用所有可用的运动和感觉信息，为未来几代前臂假肢设计精确的神经控制器。这种创造感官知觉和解释运动意图的综合方法将在志愿者与他们的世界互动时重新创建自然的，最低限度监控的人工手使用。成功完成拟议的工作将开始创造一个假手的过程，通过“图灵测试，使用者几乎感觉不到人造手和他们被截肢的生物手之间的区别。研究计划包括植入神经接口（用于刺激和记录）在人类志愿者的主要手臂神经和调查使用这些接口，而志愿者与虚拟世界互动。具体而言，该项目的目标是：（a）识别与假肢的预期运动和实际运动之间的误差相关的外周神经信号中的成分;（B）开发精确的编码器和刺激系统，以提供点状的、自然的、多模态的和分级的感觉感知;以及（c）开发、表征和评估高级解码器，所述高级解码器根据来自所述假体的外周神经信号和感觉信息的组合来估计运动意图。这第三个目标，一个先进的解码器，将与场景进行评估，提供了一个明确的衡量性能，并代表日常生活的活动。感官知觉和运动意图的整合预计将创造一个自然的，最低限度的监测使用假肢手，以更有效地与世界互动。

Most ongoing research to develop advanced hand and arm prostheses that allow an individual with amputation to perform highly dexterous movements and to sense features of objects in the world has separated the performance of movements from the sensing of objects. However, in individuals with normal ability, sensory and motor information are integrated. This project's goal is to create movement and sensation abilities in individuals with amputation that are more similar to that in normally enabled individuals. In particular, the goal is to understand how to best utilize all of the available motor and sensory information in the design of accurate neural controllers for future generations of forearm prostheses. This integrated approach to creating sensory percepts and interpreting motor intent will recreate the natural, minimally monitored use of an artificial hand in volunteers as they interact with their world. Successful completion of the proposed work will begin the process of creating a prosthetic hand that passes the 'Turing Test,' where the user perceives little difference between the artificial hand and their amputated biological hand.The program of research involves implanting neural interfaces (for both stimulating and recording) in the major arm nerves of human volunteers and investigating use of these interfaces while the volunteers interact with a virtual world. In particular, the project has the goals of (a) identifying components in peripheral nerve signals that correlate with errors between the intended movement and the actual movement of the prosthetic arm; (b) developing accurate encoders and stimulation systems that provide punctate, naturalistic, multimodal, and graded sensory percepts; and (c) developing, characterizing, and evaluating advanced decoders that estimate movement intent from a combination of peripheral nerve signals and sensory information from the prosthesis. This third goal, an advanced decoder, will be evaluated with scenarios that provide a clear measure of performance and that represent activities of daily living. The integration of sensory percepts and motor intent is expected to create a natural, minimally monitored use of a prosthetic hand in order to interact more effectively with the world.