scholarly journals Electrical stimulation of the forearm: A method for transmitting sensory signals from the artificial hand to the brain

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minja Perovic ◽  
Marija Stevanovic ◽  
Tijana Jevtic ◽  
Matija Strbac ◽  
Goran Bijelic ◽  
...  

This research is in line with an important comment from the first amputee who tried the prosthetic hand with tactile feedback developed within the Smarthand project [1]. While trying the system with tactile feedback the patient said: "It's a feeling I have not had in a long time. When I grab something tightly I can feel it in the fingertips. It's strange since I don't have them anymore! It's amazing." We describe here the instrumentation and methods for testing the abilities of humans to discriminate sensations generated by electrical stimulation applied to the skin on the forearm. The instruments allowed testing of electrical stimulation with various properties (pulse duration, intensity, and rate). We tested the perception and pain thresholds, with the emphasis that comfortable sensations are a must. During the tests subjects were asked to locate the point on the skin that was stimulated and describe their perception of the elicited sensation. Results of first tests with small concentric electrodes suggest that non-amputees can distinguish up to seven perceptual qualities (the most common one was vibration, followed by tingling and tickling). Certain sensations had a higher occurrence rate along one axial line of the forearm than another of the forearm. In terms of spatial acuity, the subjects had more difficulties in distinguishing between the positions in the axial direction of the forearm compared with the circumferential direction. These results guided the design of the new array electrode with multiple cathodes and anodes positioned circumferential to the forearm. The results of the tests conducted with this electrode design showed high location discernment accuracy, and demonstrated the ability to memorize and later accurately recall six different electrical ?messages? created by delivering electrical stimulation onto three different electrode pads with two different stimulation parameters.

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Vincent ◽  
Olivier Rossel ◽  
Mitsuhiro Hayashibe ◽  
Guillaume Herbet ◽  
Hugues Duffau ◽  
...  

AbstractBoth electrical microstimulation (EMS) and direct electrical stimulation (DES) of the brain are used to perform functional brain mapping. EMS is applied to animal fundamental neuroscience experiments, whereas DES is performed in the operating theatre on neurosurgery patients. The objective of the present review was to shed new light on electrical stimulation techniques in brain mapping by comparing EMS and DES. There is much controversy as to whether the use of DES during wide-awake surgery is the ‘gold standard’ for studying the brain function. As part of this debate, it is sometimes wrongly assumed that EMS and DES induce similar effects in the nervous tissues and have comparable behavioural consequences. In fact, the respective stimulation parameters in EMS and DES are clearly different. More surprisingly, there is no solid biophysical rationale for setting the stimulation parameters in EMS and DES; this may be due to historical, methodological and technical constraints that have limited the experimental protocols and prompted the use of empirical methods. In contrast, the gap between EMS and DES highlights the potential for new experimental paradigms in electrical stimulation for functional brain mapping. In view of this gap and recent technical developments in stimulator design, it may now be time to move towards alternative, innovative protocols based on the functional stimulation of peripheral nerves (for which a more solid theoretical grounding exists).


1968 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eros Abrantes Erhart ◽  
Cecil José Rezze ◽  
Walter Biazotto

1. The whole biventer cervicis muscles of the chick, being innervated by a branch of the dorsal ramus of C, presents structural Deculiarities which recommend it as good skeletal muscle for embryological, anatomical, physiological and pharmacological neuro-muscular investigations. 2. The nerve trunk responsible for the innervation of the distal belly runs completely included within the intermediate tendon; therefore, a tendon transection determines complete denervation and nerve fibre degeneration of the distal belly of the muscle. 3. Long-time experimentally denervated distal bellies (from three up to twelve months) are repopulated by ectopic nerve fibres which must have arisen from a source other than the proximal stump, neighbour nerves or nervi-vasorum. 4. Motor endplates appear in these long-time (eight or more months) denervated biventer cervicis distal bellies. 5. Although atrophic-looking such muscle bellies responded to indirect and to direct electrical stimulation — 1.5 V — by contraction. 6. The long-time denervated distal bellies of the biventer cervicis muscle of the chick, when properly reoperated by cross-grafting suture with the normal contralateral muscle, lost their atrophic appearance and showed to be successfully recovered in about thirty days.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britni Crocker ◽  
Lauren Ostrowski ◽  
Ziv M. Williams ◽  
Darin D. Dougherty ◽  
Emad N. Eskandar ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundMeasuring connectivity in the human brain can involve innumerable approaches using both noninvasive (fMRI, EEG) and invasive (intracranial EEG or iEEG) recording modalities, including the use of external probing stimuli, such as direct electrical stimulation.Objective/HypothesisTo examine how different measures of connectivity correlate with one another, we compared ‘passive’ measures of connectivity during resting state conditions map to the more ‘active’ probing measures of connectivity with single pulse electrical stimulation (SPES).MethodsWe measured the network engagement and spread of the cortico-cortico evoked potential (CCEP) induced by SPES at 53 total sites across the brain, including cortical and subcortical regions, in patients with intractable epilepsy (N=11) who were undergoing intracranial recordings as a part of their clinical care for identifying seizure onset zones. We compared the CCEP network to functional, effective, and structural measures of connectivity during a resting state in each patient. Functional and effective connectivity measures included correlation or Granger causality measures applied to stereoEEG (sEEGs) recordings. Structural connectivity was derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) acquired before intracranial electrode implant and monitoring (N=8).ResultsThe CCEP network was most similar to the resting state voltage correlation network in channels near to the stimulation location. In contrast, the distant CCEP network was most similar to the DTI network. Other connectivity measures were not as similar to the CCEP network.ConclusionsThese results demonstrate that different connectivity measures, including those derived from active stimulation-based probing, measure different, complementary aspects of regional interrelationships in the brain.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document