Abstract
Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) decode brain activity to control external devices. Over the past two decades, the BMI community has grown tremendously and reached some impressive milestones, including the first human clinical trials using chronically implanted intracortical electrodes. It has also contributed experimental paradigms and important findings to basic neuroscience. In this review, we discuss neuroscience achievements stemming from BMI research, specifically that based upon upper limb prosthetic control with intracortical microelectrodes. We will focus on three main areas: first, we discuss progress in neural coding of reaches in motor cortex, describing recent results linking high dimensional representations of cortical activity to muscle activation. Next, we describe recent findings on learning and plasticity in motor cortex on various time scales. Finally, we discuss how bidirectional BMIs have led to better understanding of somatosensation in and related to motor cortex.
Highlights
The particular demands of Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) experiments have produced great advances in our understanding of neural coding in sensorimotor areas
Substantial advances have been made in human cortical BMI over the past decade by multiple groups working with subjects with tetraplegia (Hochberg et al, 2006, 2012; Simeral et al, 2011; Collinger et al, 2013; Gilja et al, 2015; Jarosiewicz et al, 2015; Wodlinger et al, 2015)
The arrays were targeted at the upperlimb region of M1, but many cells from both monkeys displayed variances in firing rates that were significantly correlated with both hand and arm kinematics
Summary
The particular demands of BMI experiments have produced great advances in our understanding of neural coding in sensorimotor areas. Substantial advances have been made in human cortical BMI over the past decade by multiple groups working with subjects with tetraplegia (Hochberg et al, 2006, 2012; Simeral et al, 2011; Collinger et al, 2013; Gilja et al, 2015; Jarosiewicz et al, 2015; Wodlinger et al, 2015) Human subjects in these studies have been able to provide multiple years’ worth of valuable data. Other recent reviews (Wander and Rao, 2014; Moxon and Foffani, 2015; Oweiss and Badreldin, 2015; Golub et al, 2016) have done an excellent job of providing detailed histories of BMIs and the various ways in which BMI experiments can push basic neuroscience forward To complement these efforts, we instead will detail more specific neuroscientific achievements stemming directly from BMIs and the methodologies they produced, focusing on primary motor cortex (M1) and somatosensory cortex (S1)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
