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Closer to the Action: Recent Achievements in Spinal Neuroprostheses and Neurocontrolled Hand Prostheses| old_uid | 11843 |
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| title | Closer to the Action: Recent Achievements in Spinal Neuroprostheses and Neurocontrolled Hand Prostheses |
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| start_date | 2012/11/20 |
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| schedule | 10h |
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| online | no |
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| details | Invited by A. Arleo. |
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| summary | Neuroengineering is a novel discipline combining engineering including micro and nanotechnology, electrical and mechanical, and computer science with cellular, molecular, cognitive neuroscience with two main goals: (i) increase our basic knowledge of how the nervous system works; (ii) develop systems able to restore functions in people affected by different types of neural disability. In the past years, several breakthroughs have been reached by neuroengineers in particular on the development of neurotechnologies able to restore sensorimotor functions in disabled people. In this presentation, some research activities on this topic carried out by my laboratory in the past years will be presented. First, the recent results achieved after the implantation of intraneural electrodes in an amputee will be presented. We showed that using this approach it is possible to restore the bidirectional connection between a dexterous hand prosthesis and the nervous system. The user was also able to improve his ability to provide useful motor commands over time. Secondly, the progress towards the development of a novel neural prosthesis to restore locomotion in spinal cord injured people will be presented. To achieve this ambitious goal, we capitalize on recent breakthroughs that demonstrate the impressive capacity of spinal cord stimulations to promote the recovery of full weight bearing walking in paralyzed SCI rats. The preliminary results of the characterization of the response after epidural stimulation and of the processing of cortical signals to control the stimulation will be presented. Finally, our ongoing activities to improve robot-mediated neurorehabilitation using basic neuroscientific knowledge will be also briefly described. |
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| responsibles | Wehrle |
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