The goal of this project is to develop a Wireless, fully Implantable, bidirectional Cortical Neuroprosthetic System (W-ICONS) for restoring sensorimotor function through an interface with intact upper limb areas of primary motor and sensory cortex. Technologies that enable direct communication to and from the brain have increasingly shown promise for restoring independence to people affected by high spinal cord injuries. Despite these advances, neural interface systems are still mostly confined to laboratory settings, requiring a team of researchers to handle cumbersome transcutaneous interfaces, extensive wiring, and bulky devices for recording and stimulating neural activity. Further, these devices have typically been equipped exclusively with neural recording capabilities. The W-ICONS device would be the first wireless, bidirectional—incorporating neural recording and stimulation—cortical implant for tetraplegic individuals, creating a truly portable device for use outside the lab environment. This proposed translational study benefits from over a decade of clinical studies with microelectrode arrays, demonstrating safety and efficacy in restoring lost sensorimotor functions.

1UXQYOCLCIOB is a subproject for the "Noninvasive Biomarkers to Advance Emerging DBS Electrode Technologies in Parkinson’s Disease" dataset.

From simple decisions to more significant and complex thoughts, we constantly shift our aims and intentions and the degree to which we are interacting externally or internally. Understanding these shifts is key to the development of truly autonomous brain-computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics as well as to understanding how these kinds of alterations can be compromised in a wide variety of neuropsychiatric diseases. This multidisciplinary and multi-institutional project goes beyond routine cognitive studies based on constrained stimulus response designs and instead utilizes continuous recordings of neural activity during spontaneous behavior to decode changes in volitional state during motor activity and communication.

BTWQLWB4I0U3 is a subproject for the "A Biomimetic Approach towards a Dexterous Neuroprosthesis" dataset.