Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; USC Neurorestoration Center, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States; Department of Neurological Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States
Matiar Jafari
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program, Los Angeles, United States
HyeongChan Jo
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
Daniel Kramer
USC Neurorestoration Center, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States; Department of Neurological Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States
Kathleen Shanfield
Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, United States
Kelsie Pejsa
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
Brian Lee
USC Neurorestoration Center, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States; Department of Neurological Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States
Charles Y Liu
USC Neurorestoration Center, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States; Department of Neurological Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, United States; Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, United States
Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States; T & C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
Pioneering work with nonhuman primates and recent human studies established intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) in primary somatosensory cortex (S1) as a method of inducing discriminable artificial sensation. However, these artificial sensations do not yet provide the breadth of cutaneous and proprioceptive percepts available through natural stimulation. In a tetraplegic human with two microelectrode arrays implanted in S1, we report replicable elicitations of sensations in both the cutaneous and proprioceptive modalities localized to the contralateral arm, dependent on both amplitude and frequency of stimulation. Furthermore, we found a subset of electrodes that exhibited multimodal properties, and that proprioceptive percepts on these electrodes were associated with higher amplitudes, irrespective of the frequency. These novel results demonstrate the ability to provide naturalistic percepts through ICMS that can more closely mimic the body’s natural physiological capabilities. Furthermore, delivering both cutaneous and proprioceptive sensations through artificial somatosensory feedback could improve performance and embodiment in brain-machine interfaces.
