Brain-controlled robotic arm helps Pittsburgh woman with quadriplegia
December 17, 2014Â 12:00 AM
By Andrew Goldstein / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jan Scheuermann can beat her brother at rock-paper-scissors.
It wouldnât be so impressive if she didnât have quadriplegia and suffer from spinocerebellar degeneration for more than a decade.
Playing (and winning) that game and much more were possible when researchers connected electrodes in her brain to a robotic arm in a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine project. Findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
âIn this paper we actually split it up so that she can control four different postures of the hand and combine those all continuously, which allows her to perform a lot of different grasp types and hand shapes,â said senior investigator Jennifer Collinger, assistant professor in Pittâs Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
Brain-controlled robotic arm helps Pittsburgh woman with quadriplegia
December 17, 2014Â 12:00 AMÂ
By Andrew Goldstein / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jan Scheuermann can beat her brother at rock-paper-scissors.
It wouldnât be so impressive if she didnât have quadriplegia and suffer from spinocerebellar degeneration for more than a decade.
Playing (and winning) that game and much more were possible when researchers connected electrodes in her brain to a robotic arm in a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine project. Findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
âIn this paper we actually split it up so that she can control four different postures of the hand and combine those all continuously, which allows her to perform a lot of different grasp types and hand shapes,â said senior investigator Jennifer Collinger, assistant professor in Pittâs Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
The research describes for the first time 10-degree (or 10-movement) brain control of a prosthetic device in which the trial participant used the arm and hand to reach, grasp and place a variety of objects, Ms. Collinger said. Only seven-degree control had been reached before.
The movements that Ms. Scheuermann, 55, of Whitehall, performed that had not previously been accomplished were: finger abduction, in which the fingers are spread out; scoop, where the last fingers curl in; thumb opposition, in which the thumb moves outward from the palm; and a pinch of the thumb, index and middle fingers.
The research required surgical implementation of small electrode grids each with 96 contact points in the regions of Ms. Scheuermannâs brain that controlled her right arm and hand. Her head hurt after the surgery, but she maintained her sense of humor.
âI named my implants Lewis and Clark because they were exploring uncharted territory,â she said.
Each electrode point picked up signals from an individual neuron, which were then relayed to a computer to identify the firing patterns associated with particular observed or imagined movements, such as raising or lowering the arm, or turning the wrist.
Ms. Scheuermann watched animations of and imagined the movements while the team recorded the signals her brain was sending in a process called calibration. They then used what they had learned to read her thoughts so she could move the hand into the various positions.
This showed that signals can be interpreted from neurons with a simple computer algorithm to generate sophisticated, fluid movements that allow the user to interact with the environment, according to Ms. Collinger.
The project came to an end in October, and Ms. Scheuermann had surgery to remove the electrodes. But she doesnât think her mission is complete.
She said she wants to educate people about the research and has spoken to various college and middle and high school groups. She calls her talks âThe Lighter Side of Being a Lab Rat.â She is also currently using a dictation system to write a book about her experiences in the Pitt research.
The research may never benefit Ms. Scheuermann and may not help others with movement difficulties for years.
Ms. Collinger said that a more robust device that patients could use in their homes is at least five years away.
But this work shows that as research continues there is definite hope for the future.
âWhen people hear about this they have hope,â Ms. Scheuermann said. âAnd they have hope that something is being done even if it wonât benefit them.â
from the Pittsburgh Post GazzetteÂ
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