Revolutionizing Prosthetics: Neuroscience Framework

The neuroscience framework, as applied to the process of controlling an artificial limb, consists of reading signals from the nervous system at several anatomical levels and integrating the signals to control movement. This is a key component of a strategy to provide robust control to a lifelike prosthetic limb. This framework, capable of running on an embedded processor, implements motor decoding, sensory feedback, and decision fusion algorithms to provide the link between the prosthetic limb and a user's nervous system. To accommodate various types of disarticulations and patient needs, the system is capable of processing signals from a variety of neural devices including muscle activity peripheral nervous system action potential (spike) activity central nervous system spike activity, and local field potentials for control and feedback. The flexibility of the neuroscience framework allows it to maintain a baseline level of control and provide risk mitigation in the presence of complications that will likely arise while working with human subjects.