Restoration of reaching and grasping movements through brain-controlled muscle stimulation in a person with tetraplegia: a proof-of-concept demonstration.
Source: PubMed · Index · Peer reviewed · real data
Published: 2017-05-06
The injury this work is about
The phase, the band and the outcomes this paper's studies were recorded under, explained in plain words.
The whole vertebral column in profile along the curves it actually has, every bone drawn with its body, its arch around the canal and its spinous process, labelled C1 to the coccyx, with thirty-one pairs of nerve roots leaving it, the cord ending in a cone and the cauda equina below. Beside it, a ring of the three coverings — dura, arachnoid and pia — with the fluid space between them.
Cervical regionEight segments, C1–C8. The nerves to the diaphragm, the shoulders and the arms leave from here.
Lumbar regionFive segments, L1–L5. The nerves to the hips and legs leave from here.
Ventral hornThe front part of the butterfly. The motor neurons that drive muscles directly sit here.
Ventral rootThe bundle of fibres leaving the cord in front, carrying motor commands out to the muscles.
Corticospinal tractA descending path from the motor cortex to the motor neurons. It carries voluntary movement and crosses to the other side in the brainstem.
Motor signsWeakness, loss of voluntary movement, a change in tone. What exactly, and where, depends on the level and the completeness.
Complete injuryA clinical term with an exact meaning: no motor and no sensory function is preserved in the lowest sacral segments. It does not mean the cord has been cut through.
The AIS scaleFive grades from A to E describing severity, from no function in the sacral segments to a normal neurological examination. The grade is determined by a trained clinician from an examination — not by a website and not by the person themselves.
Identifiers
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30601-3
PubMed ID: 28363483
PMCID: PMC5516547
Claims this paper bears on
Supports — Functional electrical stimulation of upper limb muscles enables performance of functionally meaningful tasks such as drinking and self-feeding after spinal cord injury.
Supports — An intracortical brain-computer interface combined with implanted functional electrical stimulation restores volitional reaching and grasping movements of the paralysed arm after spinal cord injury.
Supports — Cortically commanded control signals enable accurate single-joint and coordinated multi-joint arm movements for target acquisition after spinal cord injury.