Spinal cord injuries and stroke afflict a significant component of our population (both the young and the aging). The lack of effective therapeutic solutions to these problems results in the need for lifetime care and expensive assistive technologies for these individuals. The decrease in the quality of life of these patients, the costs of their chronic care, and the reduction in their productivity present strong motivations to develop new therapeutic approaches to this problem. The goal of restoring motor function to individuals with spinal cord injuries or stroke victims has been hampered by the lack of an appropriate interface to the peripheral nervous system. The development of a minimal error control system for restoration of motor function will require acquisition of sensory information from a large number of cutaneous, muscle and joint receptors, and the capability of independent excitation of a large number of muscle groups. Existing neural interfaces cannot provide such multichannel independent access to sensory and motor nerve fibers. We have developed a new neural interface, the Utah Slant Array (or USA) that will provide unprecedented access to large number of sensory and motor neurons. The array has been designed to be implanted in peripheral nerves, and will provide up to 100 channels of neural communication. We will evaluate the recording and stimulating capabilities of the USA in acute experiments in feline sciatic nerve. We will develop a chronic USA implant system based upon what we have learned in our acute experiments, and evaluate its chronic recording and stimulating stability in an ambulating cat. We will demonstrate that sensory information recorded with the USA can be used to control the motor stimulation of efferent fibers to achieve a reliable control of a cat's ankle and foot movements when walking on a treadmill. Our overall goal is to acquire sufficient information about the USA and how it can be chronically applied so that human application would be feasible and ethically acceptable in a future granting period.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01NS039677-03
Application #
6490964
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-IFCN-5 (05))
Program Officer
Nitkin, Ralph M
Project Start
2000-01-28
Project End
2003-12-31
Budget Start
2002-01-01
Budget End
2002-12-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$230,285
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Utah
Department
Biomedical Engineering
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
City
Salt Lake City
State
UT
Country
United States
Zip Code
84112
Normann, R A; Dowden, B R; Frankel, M A et al. (2012) Coordinated, multi-joint, fatigue-resistant feline stance produced with intrafascicular hind limb nerve stimulation. J Neural Eng 9:026019
Dowden, B R; Frankel, M A; Normann, R A et al. (2012) Non-invasive method for selection of electrodes and stimulus parameters for FES applications with intrafascicular arrays. J Neural Eng 9:016006
Frankel, Mitchell A; Dowden, Brett R; Mathews, V John et al. (2011) Multiple-input single-output closed-loop isometric force control using asynchronous intrafascicular multi-electrode stimulation. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 19:325-32
MacFadden, Lisa N; Brown, Nicholas A T (2010) The influence of modeling separate neuromuscular compartments on the force and moment generating capacities of muscles of the feline hindlimb. J Biomech Eng 132:081003
Negi, Sandeep; Bhandari, Rajmohan; Rieth, Loren et al. (2010) Neural electrode degradation from continuous electrical stimulation: comparison of sputtered and activated iridium oxide. J Neurosci Methods 186:8-17
McDaniel, J; Elmer, S J; Martin, J C (2010) Limitations of relaxation kinetics on muscular work. Acta Physiol (Oxf) 198:191-8
McDaniel, John; Elmer, Steven J; Martin, James C (2010) The effect of shortening history on isometric and dynamic muscle function. J Biomech 43:606-11
Wilder, Andrew M; Hiatt, Scott D; Dowden, Brett R et al. (2009) Automated stimulus-response mapping of high-electrode-count neural implants. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 17:504-11
Gunalan, Kabilar; Warren, David J; Perry, Justin D et al. (2009) An automated system for measuring tip impedance and among-electrode shunting in high-electrode count microelectrode arrays. J Neurosci Methods 178:263-9
Dowden, Brett R; Wilder, Andrew M; Hiatt, Scott D et al. (2009) Selective and graded recruitment of cat hamstring muscles with intrafascicular stimulation. IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng 17:545-52

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