Multisensory bionic limb to achieve prosthesis embodiment and reduce distorted phantom limb perceptions
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Introduction A major goal of neuroprosthetics is to design artificial limbs that are experienced (‘embodied’) like real limbs. However, despite important technological advances, this goal has not been reached and prosthesis embodiment is still very limited. Differently from our physical body, current bionic limbs do not provide the continuous multisensory feedback required for a limb to be experienced as one’s own. Here, we present a novel neuroprosthetic approach that combines peripheral neurotactile stimulation—inducing tactile sensation on the missing limb—and immersive digital technology—providing visual illumination of the prosthetic hand. We tested whether coherent multisensory visuo-tactile neural stimulation (VTNS)1 induced higher prosthesis embodiment and reduced the distorted perception of the phantom limb (telescoping, ie, the phantom limb is perceived as shorter than the intact limb).Methods Patient 1 and patient 2 are transradial left forearm chronic amputees, who suffered upper limb telescoping. Patients were implanted with transverse intrafascicular multichannel electrodes (TIMEs), which induced the sensation of a vibration in a circumscribed skin region of the finger 2 via medial nerve stimulation in patient 1 (online supplementary figure 1A) and in a skin region of finger 5 via ulnar nerve stimulation in patient 2 (online supplementary figure 1B and material 1). Neurotactile stimulation2 was coupled with automatised visual illumination of a skin region on the patient’s prosthetic hand that corresponded to the somatotopic location of touch sensations experienced on the phantom hand (VTNS; online supplementary video 1, online supplementary figure 1, online supplementary material 1). VTNS was administered in two conditions, either with synchronous visual and neurotactile stimulation or in a control condition of asynchronous stimulation (1.5–2.5s delay).
Authors: Giulio Rognini, Francesco Maria Petrini, Stanisa Raspopovic, Giacomo Valle, Giuseppe Granata, Ivo Strauss, Marco Solcà, Javier Bello-Ruiz, Bruno Herbelin, Robin Mange, Edoardo D'Anna, Riccardo Di Iorio, Giovanni Di Pino, David Andreu, David Guiraud, Thomas Stieglitz, Paolo Maria Rossini, Andrea Serino, Silvestro Micera, Olaf Blanke
Institutions: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Institut Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic, Università Campus Bio-Medico, Université de Montpellier, Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier, CAMIN: Contrôle Artificiel de Mouvements et de Neuroprothèses Intuitives, University of Freiburg, Imtek (Russia), IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, University Hospital of Geneva
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2887718271