Cited by 2,719EEG and Brain-Computer InterfacesNeuroscience and Neural EngineeringStroke Rehabilitation and Recovery

Reach and grasp by people with tetraplegia using a neurally controlled robotic arm

Open access
Hochberg, Leigh R., Bacher, Daniel, Jarosiewicz, Beata, Masse, Nicolas Y., Simeral, John D., Vogel, Joern, Haddadin, Sami, Liu, Jie +3 more·2012·Nature

Abstract

Paralysis following spinal cord injury, brainstem stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other disorders can disconnect the brain from the body, eliminating the ability to perform volitional movements. A neural interface system could restore mobility and independence for people with paralysis by translating neuronal activity directly into control signals for assistive devices. We have previously shown that people with long-standing tetraplegia can use a neural interface system to move and click a computer cursor and to control physical devices. Able-bodied monkeys have used a neural interface system to control a robotic arm, but it is unknown whether people with profound upper extremity paralysis or limb loss could use cortical neuronal ensemble signals to direct useful arm actions. Here we demonstrate the ability of two people with long-standing tetraplegia to use neural interface system-based control of a robotic arm to perform three-dimensional reach and grasp movements. Participants controlled the arm and hand over a broad space without explicit training, using signals decoded from a small, local population of motor cortex (MI) neurons recorded from a 96-channel microelectrode array. One of the study participants, implanted with the sensor 5 years earlier, also used a robotic arm to drink coffee from a bottle. Although robotic reach and grasp actions were not as fast or accurate as those of an able-bodied person, our results demonstrate the feasibility for people with tetraplegia, years after injury to the central nervous system, to recreate useful multidimensional control of complex devices directly from a small sample of neural signals.

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  • The flexibility of ConvNets might be a limitation in some brain-signal decoding scenarios; if the user should learn to adapt brain signals to the decoding model, a simpler feature-based model might yield better results.

    “The flexibility of ConvNets might also be a limitation in some brain‐signal decoding scenarios. For example if the user of a brain–computer interface should learn to adapt her or his brain signals to the decoding model, a simpler feature‐based model might yield better results.”

    From Deep learning with convolutional neural networks for EEG decoding and visualization (2017) · cites this paper as Hochberg et al., 2012

    The Methods (Signal acquisition and Filter calibration; page unavailable) describe a feature-based decoder and participants controlling the robotic arm during closed-loop calibration. The paper does not compare that decoder with ConvNets or say that a simpler model yields better results when users learn to adapt their brain signals to it. (LLM, conf=0.79)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Subcutaneous invasive electrophysiological signals can be obtained through brain interfaces, ECoG on the cortical surface, and LFPs from electrodes inserted into the cortex.

    “Subcutaneous invasive electrophysiological signals can be derived through brain interfaces,[270–272] using electrocorticography (ECoG)[273,274] on the cortical surface as well as local field potentials (LFP)[275,276] extracted from electrodes inserted into the cortex.”
  • Earlier intracortical studies found that after paralysis, motor cortex still encodes intended reaching, grasping, and cursor movements.

    “Prior BCI studies have shown that the motor intention for gross motor skills, such as reaching, grasping or moving a computer cursor, remains neurally encoded in motor cortex after paralysis1–7.”
  • All reported BMI experiments with human patients require the subject to be tethered percutaneously to a bench-top computer for neural signal acquisition and decoding.

    “Currently, all reported BMI experiments with human patients [26, 35, 57, 58, 150] require the subjects tethered percutaneously to a bench-top computer for neural signal acquisition and decoding.”
  • It may be hard to obtain sufficiently large patient populations for concrete and statistically significant conclusions.

    “Additionally, it is apparent from previous work that access to sufficiently large patient populations for concrete and statistically significant conclusions may be difficult to obtain (1–5, 8, 11, 29, 39).”

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [17]Burrow M Dugger J Humphrey DR Reed DJ Hochberg LR International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics 1997 83 86

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Authors
Hochberg, L. R., Bacher, D., Jarosiewicz, B., Masse, N. Y., Simeral, J. D., Vogel, J., Haddadin, S., Liu, J., Cash, S. S., van der Smagt, P., & Donoghue, J. P.
Affiliations
  • Brown University (US)
  • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Hochberg, Leigh R.
  • Donoghue, John P.
Venue
Nature
Published
2012-05
Volume
485
Issue
7398
Pages
372-375
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2087704839
Cited by
2,719
References
41
Citations by year
2026: 123 · 2025: 170 · 2024: 176 · 2023: 196 · 2022: 166 · 2021: 199 · 2020: 227 · 2019: 206 · 2018: 201 · 2017: 185 · 2016: 203 · 2015: 189 · 2014: 240 · 2013: 184 · 2012: 50
FWCI
107.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • elib (German Aerospace Center) (acceptedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • mediaTUM (Technical University of Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (A6779-I, B6453-R, B6310N)
  • Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
  • Craig H. Neilsen Foundation
  • Office of Research and Development (A6779I, B6453R)
  • European Commission (248587)
  • National Institutes of Health (N01-HD-5-3403, n01hd53403-6-0-1, N01HD10018)
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Rehabilitation Research and Development Service (B6453R, A6779I)
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC009899)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS-25074, R37NS025074, R01NS025074, R56 NS025074)
  • National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB007401)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (RC1HD063931, HHSN275201100018C, N01HD10018, N01 HD053403)
  • National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (N01HD53403, N01HD10018)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neural Engineering
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Rehabilitation › Stroke Rehabilitation and Recovery
Keywords
tetraplegia, brain-computer interface, robot manipulators, neural interfaces, motor cortex, reach and grasp, upper limb paralysis, microelectrode arrays, long-term implantation, assistive devices, neural decoding, stroke, spinal cord injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
MeSH terms
Aged, Arm, Calibration, Drinking, Female, Hand, Humans, Male, Man-Machine Systems, Microelectrodes, Middle Aged, Motor Cortex, Movement, Psychomotor Performance, Quadriplegia, Robotics, Time Factors, Hand Strength

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