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Cortical-based neuroprosthetics: when less may be more

Nature Neuroscience volume 11, pages 1245–1246 (2008)Cite this article

Combined population activity is usually used to control neural prosthetics. A recent study in Nature finds that a single primary motor cortex neuron can control the artificial stimulation of paralyzed wrist muscles to move a computer cursor.

Studies on non-human primates have shown that the activity of a large population of neurons in the primary motor cortex (and elsewhere) can predict movement features such as the direction of hand movement (ref. 2; but see ref. 3). Cortical-based neuroprosthetics capitalize on these findings by isolating the activity patterns from many neurons and then using a mathematical algorithm to convert these noisy spike trains into a signal that controls the movement of a computer cursor or robotic arm. To date, neuroprosthetic research has focused on increasing the number of recorded neurons and developing faster and more accurate algorithms to convert spike trains into useful control signals4,5,6. Of particular interest is the recent demonstration that a human subject who was paralyzed from a spinal-cord injury was able to directly control the movement of a computer cursor, driven by neural activity in his motor cortex7.

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Figure 1: Potential design of a cortical-based prosthetic to re-animate a paralyzed limb.

Katie Ris-Vicari

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology, The author is at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies, and Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada. steve@biomed.queensu.ca,

    Stephen H Scott

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Scott, S. Cortical-based neuroprosthetics: when less may be more. Nat Neurosci 11, 1245–1246 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1108-1245

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