Toward Prosthetic Systems Controlled by Parietal Cortex
Krishna Shenoy, Sohaib Kureshi, Richard Andersen, Shiyan Cao, Joel W. Burdick

At present there are no satisfactory treatments or assistive aids for people suffering from neurological disorders such as stroke, ALS, or spinal cord injuries. Neuroscientists have taken great strides in the past few decades toward uncovering basic principles underlying our ability to see and move. The combination of these discoveries and the revolutionary advances in computer technology have led to an emerging view that neural prosthetics --- or electronic interfaces with the brain --- may one day be possible. This project aims to demonstrate the potential for neural prosthetics to help patients with upper spinal cord injury, which results in the loss of arm movements. Andersen and colleagues recently discovered a cortical area in monkeys and humans that encodes the next intended arm movement. This area is ideally suited to provide high-level control signals for guiding real or prosthetic arms. We propose to implant chronic electrode arrays in this region of monkey cortex and to record neural activity generated during reaching arm movements. We will process these neural signals in real-time to construct control signals for guiding a prosthetic arm. Combining behaving-monkey electrophysiology techniques, state-of-the-art electrode array technology, and feedback control systems should provide the foundation on which to build neural prosthetics for humans. Below we outline our major aims and, in the achievements section, we describe our progress in the past year. (full report)