人造神經運動裝置

Nature, July 13, 2006
封麵故事：人造神經運動裝置

本期封麵所示為BrainGate飛行員臨床試驗的第一位參與者Matt Nagle。在頸部脊索損傷後，他的胳膊和腿不能動了。布朗大學神經科學係的研究人員與生物技術公司Cyberkinetics及其他三個機構的人員合作，發現與運動有關的信號可通過一個植入的BrainGate芯片從大腦向外傳遞，使患者能夠驅動一個電腦屏幕光標，啟動簡單的自動裝置。這種人造神經運動裝置有可能為研製可以代替或恢複癱瘓患者喪失的運動功能的係統鋪平道路。（Article p. 164; News and Views; News Feature; www.nature.com/podcast）在這項進展之前，這種類型的工作主要是在猴子身上進行的。在最近的一例這種研究中，研究人員使這類裝置的運動速度與當前的裝置相比有了很大提高，從而使得研製可在臨床上使用的腦機器接口的前景更加樂觀。

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Large numbered ellipses draw attention to the increase in neural activity related to the peripheral reach target. a, Standard instructed-delay reach trial. Data from selected neural units are shown (grey shaded region); each row corresponds to one unit and black tick marks indicate spike times. Units are ordered by angular tuning direction (preferred direction) during the delay period. For hand (H) and eye (E) traces, blue and red lines show the horizontal and vertical coordinates, respectively. The full range of scale for these data is 15 cm from the centre touch cue. b, Chain of three prosthetic cursor trials followed by a standard instructed-delay reach trial. T_skip is denoted by the orange parts of the time line. Neural activity was integrated (T_int) during the purple shaded interval and used to predict the reach target location. After a short processing time (T_dec+rend 40 ms), a prosthetic cursor was briefly rendered and a new target was displayed. The dotted circles represent the reach target and prosthetic cursor from the previous trial, both of which were rapidly extinguished before the start of the trial indicated. Trials shown here are from experiment H20041106.1 with monkey H.
(Copy right@Nature, 2006)