Biomedical Engineering Department, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH, 44106, United States of America.
J Neural Eng. 2018 Jun;15(3):036003. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/aa8735. Epub 2017 Aug 21.
The objective of this work was to evaluate whether nerve cuffs can selectively activate hand muscles for functional electrical stimulation (FES). FES typically involves identifying and implanting electrodes in many individual muscles, but nerve cuffs only require implantation at a single site around the nerve. This method is surgically more attractive. Nerve cuffs may also more effectively stimulate intrinsic hand muscles, which are difficult to implant and stimulate without spillover to adjacent muscles.
To evaluate its ability to selectively activate muscles, we implanted and tested the flat interface nerve electrode (FINE), which is designed to selectively stimulate peripheral nerves that innervate multiple muscles (Tyler and Durand 2002 IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. 10 294-303). We implanted FINEs on the nerves and bipolar intramuscular wires for recording compound muscle action potentials (CMAPs) from up to 20 muscles in each arm of six monkeys. We then collected recruitment curves while the animals were anesthetized.
A single FINE implanted on an upper extremity nerve in the monkey can selectively activate muscles or small groups of muscles to produce multiple, independent hand functions.
FINE cuffs can serve as a viable supplement to intramuscular electrodes in FES systems, where they can better activate intrinsic and extrinsic muscles with lower currents and less extensive surgery.
本研究旨在评估神经袖套是否可以对手部肌肉进行选择性激活，以实现功能性电刺激（FES）。FES 通常需要识别和植入多个肌肉中的电极，但神经袖套仅需在神经周围的单个部位植入。这种方法在手术上更具吸引力。神经袖套还可以更有效地刺激内在手部肌肉，这些肌肉很难植入和刺激，而且容易发生相邻肌肉的溢出。
为了评估其选择性激活肌肉的能力，我们植入并测试了平面接口神经电极（FINE），该电极旨在选择性地刺激支配多个肌肉的周围神经（Tyler 和 Durand，2002 IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. 10, 294-303）。我们将 FINE 植入猴子每只手臂的神经上，并植入双极肌内电极以记录来自多达 20 块肌肉的复合肌肉动作电位（CMAP）。然后，在动物麻醉时收集募集曲线。
单个 FINE 植入猴子上肢神经上，可以选择性地激活肌肉或小肌群，以产生多种独立的手部功能。
FINE 袖套可以作为 FES 系统中肌内电极的可行补充，它可以用更低的电流和更少的广泛手术来更好地激活内在和外在肌肉。
