Spinal And Peripheral Mechanisms Of Human Motor Control

在过去的几年中，我们的研究主要集中在原发性侧索硬化症（PLS）患者皮质和脊髓运动回路的生理变化。在与欧白博士的合作研究中，我们发现了PLS患者运动前的振荡脑电图信号，这些患者的皮层神经元产生的慢直流电位减弱。在2008年，我们报道了这些振荡信号的单次试验变化与想象的运动可以为少数PLS患者的基于脑电图的脑机接口提供控制信号。这项工作将在明年扩展到肌萎缩侧索硬化症（ALS）患者。第二项研究旨在评估PLS患者（非运动）额叶皮质功能障碍的程度，并将其与ALS患者进行比较。这项为期3年的方案包括神经心理测试、精神评估和定量MRI成像，目前已进入第二年。最后，认识到PLS可能是一种复杂的疾病，我们正在收集PLS患者的样本，用于科里ell的NINDS运动神经元疾病DNA库，以便这一罕见的人群将可供一般科学界进一步研究。

Over the past several years, our research has focused on physiological changes in cortical and spinal motor circuits in patients with primary lateral sclerosis (PLS). In collaborative studies with Dr. Ou Bai, we identified oscillatory EEG signals that preceded movement in PLS patients in whom the slow DC potentials generated by cortical neurons were diminished. In FY08, we report that single-trial changes in these oscillatory signals with imagined movement can provide a control signal for an EEG-based brain-computer interface in a small number of PLS patients. This work is being extended to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients in the coming year. A second line of study is aimed at assessing the extent of (non-motor) frontal cortical dysfunction in PLS patients, and to compare them to patients with ALS. This 3-year protocol includes neuropsychological tests, psychiatric assessment, and quantitative MRI imaging, and is in its second year. Lastly, recognizing that PLS is likely to be complex disorder, we are collecting samples from PLS patients for the NINDS DNA repository for motor neuron diseases at Coriell, so that this rare population will be accessible to the general scientific community for further studies.