BME Seminar: Dr. Lee Miller - Development of a Bi-directional Neural Interface to Restore Motion and Sensation in Spinal Cord Injury

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Wishnick Hall, Room 113 (Auditorium), 3255 South Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60616
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Armour College of Engineering’s Biomedical Engineering Department will host a seminar featuring Lee E. Miller, Ph.D., Professor of Physiology/Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine on February 13, 2015. Lecture topic will be Development of a Bi-directional Neural Interface to Restore Motion and Sensation in Spinal Cord Injury.

Abstract

We have developed a brain machine interface (BMI) that allows monkey subjects to grasp objects despite temporary paralysis of their wrist and hand muscles. To accomplish this, we recorded signals from approximately 100 neurons in the hand area of the motor cortex and used this information to control electrical stimulation that generated contractions of the paralyzed muscles in real time. The system essentially bypasses the spinal cord, allowing the monkeys voluntary control of their paralyzed muscles. We anticipate that such a system might ultimately provide spinal cord injured patients with control of arm and hand movements through normal cognitive processes, and greatly enhance their independence and well being.

However, a major remaining issue that must be addressed is the need to restore somato-sensation, including proprioception, the sense of limb position and movement. Patients suffering from lost proprioception make movements that are slow, poorly coordinated, and require great concentration. Existing BMIs, including ours, rely exclusively on visual feedback, which may account in part, for their relatively limited performance. In a separate project, we have studied the way individual neurons in somatosensory cortex respond during arm movements. By simultaneously recording the activity of many of these neurons, we are able to infer the direction of limb movements made by the monkey. We have now begun new experiments designed to convey an artificial sense of limb movement by electrically stimulating these same neurons in an effort to reproduce their normal pattern of movement-related activity. Such an afferent neural interface might ultimately be used to convey continuous feedback to a BMI user that would operate in parallel with an efferent interface.