RR&D Research Career Scientist Award Application

被提名者研究活动的首要目标是提高退伍军人的生活质量， 肢体缺失的人。上肢假肢研究是一个特别感兴趣的领域和相关的VA 尤其是在战争时期被提名人通过他的实验室VA/CU生物机电一体化发展 该实验室及其工作人员寻求通过以下方式改善截肢退伍军人的假肢选择 应用新方法和技术开发临床相关的假体系统 和解决方案虽然这是一个个人目标的提名，能够开发一个人造手替代品， 被提名人及其团队能够真正灵巧地操作，供失去上肢的人使用。 探索问题的各个方面，从神经控制和传感;机电一体化设计， 开发;新型致动器技术;新型物理悬挂/接口技术;临床部署 这些系统;方法来管理幻肢疼痛;进行临床测试的系统开发。 被提名人曾以某种形式从事假肢设计和康复研究 （学生，博士后，科学家，导师）超过25年，并在此期间一直保持校外资金。 被提名人已经获得了许多合同和赠款，为许多国家开发先进的肢体系统， 不同的联邦资助机构，包括VA，NIH和DARPA以及加拿大UNB的分包合同。 在此期间，除了作为VA研究员和学术研究员外，被提名人还完成了 培训所需的成为一个临床假肢，是国家研究主任先进的手臂 动力学（AAD）2年，（AAD是上肢假肢护理的国家提供商），提供提名人 对上肢假肢领域的护理有着深刻的临床见解。 因此，被提名人认为他应该探索并提供切实可行的解决方案， 临床问题，同时也探索的想法，推动目前的技术，但可能导致 平台级技术，具有在较长时间内对许多不相关领域产生广泛影响的潜力。 term.提名人的VA项目旨在解决与手臂退伍军人直接临床相关的问题 截肢，但这样做是一种新颖和创新的方式。特别是，被提名人目前的VA补助金将用于开发 并基于Nominee提出的Poetry控制思想设计了一种新型假肢控制器。问题在于穷人 现有的多功能电动手不能充分发挥其功能的控制 潜力在通过新颖处理的功率控制中，控制信号被映射到二维 空间，其中空间中的坐标表示手的姿势，从而实现整个手的姿势控制，而不是 联合控制。这种控制方法已经开发，测试和演示，我们正在努力 与一家公司合作，将我们的算法集成到他们的假肢控制器中，并将其应用于现场。 被提名人的非VA研究集中在使用光学方法来询问神经。真灵巧 如果没有来自机械手的感觉反馈（触摸、压力、力）， 假手直接连接使用者的神经系统。被提名人正在探索使用光学 非侵入性地促进神经元内的动作电位或从神经读出动作电位的方法。 我们最近发表了我们的工作成果，展示了如何使用光学方法来 与周围神经交流这是一个具有很长事件视界的蓝天项目， 翻译的可能性。如果用于与正中神经或尺神经连接，则这样的接口可以提供 用于假肢的感觉或运动控制。如果接口调节迷走神经， 例如调节胰腺的神经元以控制葡萄糖和/或糖原分泌 而不同时驱动心脏。这样的基于光学的光学传感器的广泛可能性的一个例子是， 外周神经接口可能提供。

The over-arching goal of the Nominees research activities is to improve the quality of life of veterans and individuals with limb loss. Upper-limb prosthetics research is an area of particular interest and relevance to VA especially in times of war. The Nominee through his Laboratory the VA/CU Biomechatronics Development Laboratory and its people seeks to improve the prosthetic options available to veterans with limb loss through the application of novel approaches and technology to the development of clinically relevant prosthetic systems and solutions. While it is a personal goal of the Nominee to be able to develop an artificial hand replacement capable of true dexterous manipulation for use by persons with upper-limb loss the Nominee and his team explore all aspects of the problem ranging from neural control and sensing; mechatronic design and development; novel actuator technologies; novel physical suspension/interface techniques; clinical deployment of these systems; methods to manage phantom limb pain; conducting clinical testing of the systems developed. The Nominee has been in the field of Prosthesis design and Rehabilitation Research in one form or another (Student, Post-doc, Scientist, Mentor) for over 25 years and has maintained extramural funding over that period. The Nominee has had numerous contracts and grants to develop advanced limb systems for a number of different Federal funding agencies including VA, NIH, and DARPA as well as Subcontracts from UNB in Canada. Over that time, in addition to being a VA Researcher and academic researcher, the Nominee completed the training required to become a clinical prosthetist and was National Director of Research for Advanced Arm Dynamics (AAD) for 2 years, (AAD is a national provider of upper-limb prosthetics care), providing the Nominee with a deep clinical insight into how care is provided in our field of upper-limb prosthetics. As a result, the Nominee believes he should explore and provide practical solutions to immediately pressing clinical problems while also exploring ideas that push the envelope of current technology but that might lead to platform level technologies with the potential for broad impact across a number of unrelated fields in the longer term. The Nominee’s VA projects aim to address issues of immediate clinical relevance to veterans with arm amputations but do so in a novel and innovative way. In particular, the Nominee’s current VA grant is to develop and test a novel prosthesis controller based on the Nominee’s ideas of Posture Control. At issue is the poor control available for current multifunctional electric hands that fails to enable them to operate at their fullest potential. In Posture Control through novel processing the control signals are mapped to a two-dimensional space where coordinates in the space represent hand postures enabling whole hand Posture Control rather than joint based control. This control approach has been developed, tested and demonstrated and we are working with a company to integrate our algorithm into their prosthesis controller to translate it to the field. The Nominee’s non-VA research is centered around using optical methods to interrogate nerves. True dexterous control of an artificial hand will not be achieved without sensory feedback (touch, pressure, force) from a prosthetic hand interfaced directly to the user’s nervous system. The Nominee is exploring the use of optical methods to non-invasively promote action potentials within neurons or to read-out action potentials from a nerve. We have recently published results of our work demonstrating how optical methods could be used to communicate with peripheral nerves. This is a blue-sky project with a long event horizon yet still grounded in the possibility of translation. If used to interface with the median or ulnar nerves such an interface could provide sensory or motor control for a prosthesis. If the interface modulates the vagus nerve then many other options become possible – such as modulating the neurons to the pancreas to control glucose and/or glycogen secretion without at the same time driving the heart. An example of the broad possibilities such an optically based peripheral nerve interface might provide.