Wearable Brain-Computer Interface for Treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) With A Neural Replacement Strategy

肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)是一种进展迅速的运动神经元退行性疾病，可导致衰弱、瘫痪，最终在3-5年内死于呼吸衰竭。这是一种与年龄相关的疾病，症状通常在55岁至75岁之间出现。随着60岁及以上人口的增加，预计到2040年，全球ALS病例数量将增加69%，英国病例将增加30%。这一增长将使英国目前的医疗成本至少增加9500万美元。目前还没有治愈肌萎缩侧索硬化症的方法。功能性电刺激(FES)已被广泛应用于肌肉麻痹的治疗，但由于运动神经元的进行性丢失，对ALS的治疗效果有限。UCL一直在开发一种用于ALS治疗的新的神经替代策略，该策略能够恢复瘫痪肌肉的功能控制。这种先进的疗法将干细胞衍生的运动神经元植入供应特定靶肌肉的外周运动神经，结合执行受控、高选择性光学刺激的完全可植入的光遗传刺激器，为ALS患者恢复广泛的运动功能。作为开发一种综合疗法以恢复ALS患者基本日常生活能力(ADL)的持续努力的一部分，这项博士研究旨在开发一种非侵入性、微型化的脑机接口(BCI)，该接口与可植入的光遗传刺激器无线耦合，以恢复自愿控制的运动。这项研究将探索利用非侵入性脑电(EEG)从大脑活动中实时准确地检测和分类运动意图的算法，以及用于EEG检测、分类和与神经调制的无线集成以促进肌肉收缩的功率/面积高效的硬件实现。这项博士研究针对EPSRC的医疗技术主题：开发新的治疗方法和扩大物理干预的前沿。

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease of motor neurons leading to wasting, paralysis, and eventual death from respiratory failure within 3 to 5 years. It is an age-related disease, with symptoms most commonly develop between the ages of 55 and 75. With the increase of population aged 60 and over, there is projected 69% global increase in the number of ALS cases worldwide by 2040, and 30% increase in UK cases. The increase will add at least an additional USD $95 million to the current healthcare costs in the UK. There is currently no cure for ALS. Functional electrical stimulation (FES), which has been widely used in treating muscle paralysis, has limited effect on ALS due to the progressive loss of motor neurons. UCL have been developing a novel neural replacement strategy for ALS treatment that is capable of restoring functional control of paralysed muscles. This advanced therapy engrafts stem cell-derived motor neurons into peripheral motor nerves that supply specific target muscles, combined with a fully implantable optogenetic stimulator performing controlled, highly-selective optical stimulation, to restore a wide range of motor functions to ALS patients. As part of the ongoing efforts to develop a combined therapy to restore essential activities of daily life (ADL) in ALS patients, this PhD study aims to develop a non-invasive, miniaturised brain-computer interface (BCI) that is wirelessly coupled to an implantable optogenetic stimulator to restore voluntarily controlled movement. The study will explore algorithms that can accurately detect and classify motion intention in real-time from brain activities using non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG), and the power/area-efficient hardware implementation for EEG detection, classification and wireless integration with neural modulation to facilitate muscle contraction.This PhD study addresses EPSRC's Healthcare technologies themes "Developing new therapies" and "Expanding the frontiers of physical intervention".