Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA.
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 9;14(1):15871. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66773-9.
Although epidural spinal cord and muscle stimulation have each been separately used for restoration of movement after spinal cord injury, their combined use has not been widely explored. Using both approaches in combination could provide more flexible control compared to using either approach alone, but whether responses evoked from such combined stimulation can be easily predicted is unknown. We evaluate whether responses evoked by combined spinal and muscle stimulation can be predicted simply, as the linear summation of responses produced by each type of stimulation individually. Should this be true, it would simplify the prediction of co-stimulation responses and the development of control schemes for spinal cord injury rehabilitation. In healthy anesthetized rats, we measured hindlimb isometric forces in response to spinal and muscle stimulation. Force prediction errors were calculated as the difference between predicted and observed co-stimulation forces. We found that spinal and muscle co-stimulation could be closely predicted as the linear summation of the individual spinal and muscle responses and that the errors were relatively low. We discuss the implications of these results to the use of combined muscle and spinal stimulation for the restoration of movement following spinal cord injury.
虽然硬膜外脊髓和肌肉刺激已分别用于脊髓损伤后的运动恢复，但它们的联合使用尚未得到广泛探索。与单独使用任何一种方法相比，联合使用这两种方法可能提供更灵活的控制，但这种联合刺激引起的反应是否可以轻松预测尚不清楚。我们评估了通过组合脊髓和肌肉刺激引起的反应是否可以简单地预测，即作为每种类型刺激单独产生的反应的线性总和。如果这是正确的，它将简化对共刺激反应的预测以及脊髓损伤康复的控制方案的开发。在健康麻醉大鼠中，我们测量了对脊髓和肌肉刺激的后肢等长力。力预测误差计算为预测和观察到的共刺激力之间的差异。我们发现，脊髓和肌肉的共刺激可以作为个体脊髓和肌肉反应的线性总和进行精确预测，并且误差相对较低。我们讨论了这些结果对联合肌肉和脊髓刺激用于脊髓损伤后运动恢复的意义。
