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Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings contain dynamic information inherent to its complex behavior, therefore, the accurate estimation of neural activity is highly dependent on the inclusion of such information in the inverse problem solution. The present work presents a way to obtain constraints for the Bayesian inverse problem solution, through a Variational Bayes Approach, using information...
Stroke is the main cause of hemiparesis in developed countries. Very often upper limbs are compromised and the hemiparesis is characterized by abnormal muscle activations especially at the level of the wrist and fingers (distal muscles). In this study we investigated the stability and strength of paretic upper limb muscle activity during different bilateral movements eliciting different postures and...
Parallel excitation and ‘light-sheet’ optical methods, such as multifocal multiphoton microscopy, selective plane illumination microscopy, and temporal focusing microscopy offer significant enhancement of data acquisition rates compared to the relabtively slow serial-scanning rate of two photon laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM). However, since these methods typically rely on detecting the fluorescence...
The rehabilitation of manipulation ability in orthopedic (e.g., thumb carpometacarpal osteoarthritis-CMC OA) and neurological (e.g., Parkinson's disease-PD) conditions depends critically on our ability to detect dysfunction and quantify its evolution and response to treatment. The Strength-Dexterity (SD) test is a validated indicator of dynamic dexterous manipulation function, but its ability to categorize...
A natural and intuitive operation of multifunctional upper limb prostheses involves the concurrent activation of multiple degrees of freedom in a proportional way. Several approaches to simultaneous and proportional control strategies have been investigated; provided outcome measures however were offline accuracy or error rates and lacked the functional component of a preclinical assessment. This...
Electrical stimulation of pudendal nerve (PN) afferents to cause reflex activation or inhibition of the bladder is a promising approach to restore control of bladder function in persons with dysfunction caused by disease or injury. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of novel temporal patterns of stimulation on the size of isovolumetric stimulation-evoked reflex bladder contractions...
Novel materials are needed for intracortical neural implants (INI) to extend their reliability and functionality beyond a few years. Cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) is a chemically inert, physically robust semiconductor that has shown, through extensive in vitro testing, a high biocompatibility with neural cells. Recently we have shown that 3C-SiC does not attract a negative immune response from microglia...
Active sensing incorporates closed-loop behavioral selection of information during sensory acquisition. The rodent whisker tactile system provides an ideal platform for studying these processes. We developed methods to deliver optogenetic feedback to mouse primary somatosensory cortex (SI), time-locked to active sensing motions (whisking) estimated through facial electromyography (EMG). To explore...
The assembly of flexible polyimide-based thin-film electrode arrays with commercial Nano Omnetics connectors turned out to be a sensitive and very time-consuming fabrication step in the past, especially when high integration densities of connector pads had to be addressed. We developed a laser-structured ceramic adapter, which simplifies this assembly and which allows a robust and reliable connection...
Replacing lost hands with prosthetic devices that offer the same functionality as natural limbs is an open challenge, as current technology is often limited to basic grasps by the low information readout. In this work, we develop a probabilistic inference-based method that allows for improved control of neuroprosthetic devices. We observe the behaviour of the undamaged limb to predict the most likely...
We have fabricated a soft silicone structure to support the regeneration of a sciatic nerve. The device consists of 70 parallel (120 × 110 μm2) channels through which axons extend and then reconnect to the muscles on the other side of the device. Through histology and electrophysiology, we show that axons grow through the device and functionality of the muscle control is restored. Nerve functionality...
Sensory prostheses must encode complex surrogate sensory signals as patterns of microstimulation, and yet no established framework exists for quantifying the information delivered to the brain. Here we develop a Bayesian decoder based on the underlying anatomy in cortex and evaluate it on population neural activity recorded from the vibrissa region of rodent primary somatosensory cortex with voltage...
Highly selective indwelling neuroprosthetic interfaces are able to detect minute electrical signals from the nerve fibers in its vicinity as single fiber action potential (SFAP) waveforms. In the peripheral nervous system, each SFAP has a unique shape resulting from each fiber's unique microelectrical interaction between itself, it's mileau and the recording electrode. Two specific factors, the nerve...
In the design of cortical stimulating prostheses for applications such as vision perception or motor control it is preferable to use wireless power and data transfer to maintain a biological barrier to infection. This puts a constraint on the amount of power that can be supplied to the implant, in turn limiting the power that can be used for stimulation. Design of electrodes for such prostheses have...
Electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves is a widespread technique for the treatment of neurological diseases and disorders. However, peripheral stimulation typically requires surgical implantation of an electrode and a pulse generator. Transcutaneous stimulation with an external electrode and pulse generator could provide a noninvasive alternative for nerve stimulation. In this study we implemented...
Epidural electrical stimulation (EES) showed promises to improve standing and walking after neurological disorders. To date, EES has been delivered continuously, although time-dependent stimulations would likely be more efficient to activate specific subsets of sensorimotor circuits with the appropriate timing. To address this issue, we developed a real-time stimulation platform that allows to trigger...
Electrical recording of peripheral nerve activity using a nerve cuff electrode is a potential long-term solution for implementing a closed-loop controlled neuroprosthetic system. However, the clinical utility of this approach is significantly limited by various factors, such as poor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the recorded electroneurogram (ENG). In this paper, we investigated the effects of (1)...
Co-robotic assistants, or Cobots can improve the quality of life for individuals with locked-in syndrome (LIS) by allowing augmented control over their surroundings. Implemented in collaboration between the Boston University Neuromorphics Lab and Neural Prosthesis Lab, this work provides a proof of concept of an autonomous robot coupled with a non-invasive brain machine interface (BMI). The system...
This study was aimed to design and fabricate a wide field implantable epi-retinal microelectrode array for the purpose of retinal repair, and to perform electrochemical test on the array. With parylene as flexible substrate material and Pt as electrode and route material, microelectrode array prototypes was designed and fabricated, and electric characteristics of the array was tested with the three-electrode...
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder that causes increasing mortality risk and affects the quality of life of approximately 6.62% of the total US population. Timely detection of sleep apnea events is vital for the treatment of OSA. In this paper, we present a novel approach based on extracting the quantifiers of nonlinear dynamic cardio-respiratory coupling from electrocardiogram...
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