Speaker
Cindy Chestek
Date
Location
University of Houston
Abstract
To surpass the current state of the art in assistive technology the next step is to control more
complex movements at the level of individual fingers. For people with upper limb amputation,
we acquire signals from individual peripheral nerve branches using small muscle grafts to
amplify the signal. Human study participants have recently been able to control individual
fingers online using indwelling EMG electrodes within these grafts. For spinal cord injury, we
implant Utah arrays into finger areas of motor cortex, and have successfully decoded flexion
and extension in multiple fingers. Decoding “spiking band” activity at much lower sampling
rates, we recently showed that power consumption of an implantable device could be
reduced by an order of magnitude compared to existing broadband approaches. Finally,
finger control is ultimately limited by the number of independent electrodes that can be
placed within cortex or the nerves, and this is in turn limited by the extent of glial scarring
surrounding an electrode. We developed an electrode array based on 8 um carbon fibers, no
bigger than the neurons for chronic recording of single units with minimal scarring. Our longterm
goal is to make neural interfaces for the restoration of hand movement a clinical reality.
complex movements at the level of individual fingers. For people with upper limb amputation,
we acquire signals from individual peripheral nerve branches using small muscle grafts to
amplify the signal. Human study participants have recently been able to control individual
fingers online using indwelling EMG electrodes within these grafts. For spinal cord injury, we
implant Utah arrays into finger areas of motor cortex, and have successfully decoded flexion
and extension in multiple fingers. Decoding “spiking band” activity at much lower sampling
rates, we recently showed that power consumption of an implantable device could be
reduced by an order of magnitude compared to existing broadband approaches. Finally,
finger control is ultimately limited by the number of independent electrodes that can be
placed within cortex or the nerves, and this is in turn limited by the extent of glial scarring
surrounding an electrode. We developed an electrode array based on 8 um carbon fibers, no
bigger than the neurons for chronic recording of single units with minimal scarring. Our longterm
goal is to make neural interfaces for the restoration of hand movement a clinical reality.