Changes in neuromuscular activity during motor training with a body-machine interface after spinal cord injury

C. Pierella, A. De Luca, E. Tasso, F. Cervetto, S. Gamba, L. Losio, E. Quinland, A. Venegoni, S. Mandraccia, I. Muller, A. Massone, F. A. Mussa-Ivaldi, M. Casadio

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Body machine interfaces (BMIs) are used by people with severe motor disabilities to control external devices, but they also offer the opportunity to focus on rehabilitative goals. In this study we introduced in a clinical setting a BMI that was integrated by the therapists in the rehabilitative treatments of 2 spinal cord injured (SCI) subjects for 5 weeks. The BMI mapped the user's residual upper body mobility onto the two coordinates of a cursor on a screen. By controlling the cursor, the user engaged in playing computer games. The BMI allowed the mapping between body and cursor spaces to be modified, gradually challenging the user to exercise more impaired movements. With this approach, we were able to change our subjects' behavior, who initially used almost exclusively their proximal upper body-shoulders and arms - for using the BMI. By the end of training, cursor control was shifted toward more distal body regions - forearms instead of upper arms - with an increase of mobility and strength of all the degrees of freedom involved in the control. The clinical tests and the electromyographic signals from the main muscles of the upper body confirmed the positive effect of the training. Encouraging the subjects to explore different and sometimes unusual movement combinations was beneficial for recovering distal arm functions and for increasing their overall mobility.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2017 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ICORR 2017
EditorsArash Ajoudani, Panagiotis Artemiadis, Philipp Beckerle, Giorgio Grioli, Olivier Lambercy, Katja Mombaur, Domen Novak, Georg Rauter, Carlos Rodriguez Guerrero, Gionata Salvietti, Farshid Amirabdollahian, Sivakumar Balasubramanian, Claudio Castellini, Giovanni Di Pino, Zhao Guo, Charmayne Hughes, Fumiya Iida, Tommaso Lenzi, Emanuele Ruffaldi, Fabrizio Sergi, Gim Song Soh, Marco Caimmi, Leonardo Cappello, Raffaella Carloni, Tom Carlson, Maura Casadio, Martina Coscia, Dalia De Santis, Arturo Forner-Cordero, Matthew Howard, Davide Piovesan, Adriano Siqueira, Frank Sup, Masia Lorenzo, Manuel Giuseppe Catalano, Hyunglae Lee, Carlo Menon, Stanisa Raspopovic, Mo Rastgaar, Renaud Ronsse, Edwin van Asseldonk, Bram Vanderborght, Madhusudhan Venkadesan, Matteo Bianchi, David Braun, Sasha Blue Godfrey, Fulvio Mastrogiovanni, Andrew McDaid, Stefano Rossi, Jacopo Zenzeri, Domenico Formica, Nikolaos Karavas, Laura Marchal-Crespo, Kyle B. Reed, Nevio Luigi Tagliamonte, Etienne Burdet, Angelo Basteris, Domenico Campolo, Ashish Deshpande, Venketesh Dubey, Asif Hussain, Vittorio Sanguineti, Ramazan Unal, Glauco Augusto de Paula Caurin, Yasuharu Koike, Stefano Mazzoleni, Hyung-Soon Park, C. David Remy, Ludovic Saint-Bauzel, Nikos Tsagarakis, Jan Veneman, Wenlong Zhang
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages1100-1105
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781538622964
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 11 2017
Event2017 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ICORR 2017 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Jul 17 2017Jul 20 2017

Publication series

NameIEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics
ISSN (Print)1945-7898
ISSN (Electronic)1945-7901

Other

Other2017 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ICORR 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period7/17/177/20/17

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Rehabilitation
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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