Dexterous Control of Seven Functional Hand Movements Using Cortically-Controlled Transcutaneous Muscle Stimulation in a Person With Tetraplegia

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Michael A. Schwemmer¹  Nicholas D. Skomrock¹  David A. Friedenberg¹  Samuel C. Colachis²  Marcie A. Bockbrader³  Walter J. Mysiw³  Nicholas V. Annetta⁴  Mingming Zhang⁴  Herbert S. Bresler⁴  Gaurav Sharma⁴  Ali R. Rezai⁵ 

[1] Advanced Analytics Group, Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH, United States;Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States;Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States;Medical Devices and Neuromodulation Group, Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH, United States;Neurological Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States;

关键词: brain-computer interface;    functional electrical stimulation;    spinal cord injury;    neuro-orthotics;    functional hand grasping;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnins.2018.00208

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Individuals with tetraplegia identify restoration of hand function as a critical, unmet need to regain their independence and improve quality of life. Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)-controlled Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) technology addresses this need by reconnecting the brain with paralyzed limbs to restore function. In this study, we quantified performance of an intuitive, cortically-controlled, transcutaneous FES system on standardized object manipulation tasks from the Grasp and Release Test (GRT). We found that a tetraplegic individual could use the system to control up to seven functional hand movements, each with >95% individual accuracy. He was able to select one movement from the possible seven movements available to him and use it to appropriately manipulate all GRT objects in real-time using naturalistic grasps. With the use of the system, the participant not only improved his GRT performance over his baseline, demonstrating an increase in number of transfers for all objects except the Block, but also significantly improved transfer times for the heaviest objects (videocassette (VHS), Can). Analysis of underlying motor cortex neural representations associated with the hand grasp states revealed an overlap or non-separability in neural activation patterns for similarly shaped objects that affected BCI-FES performance. These results suggest that motor cortex neural representations for functional grips are likely more related to hand shape and force required to hold objects, rather than to the objects themselves. These results, demonstrating multiple, naturalistic functional hand movements with the BCI-FES, constitute a further step toward translating BCI-FES technologies from research devices to clinical neuroprosthetics.

【 授权许可】

Unknown