IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, 2009 · DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2008.2008193 · Published: February 1, 2009
This study focuses on improving movement therapy after spinal cord or brain injury using electrical stimulation. The goal is to use the body's ability to adapt (activity-dependent plasticity) to regain movement. By electrically stimulating paralyzed muscles, the therapy could be improved. To test this, researchers developed a system for rodents that uses electrical stimulation to help with leg movement. The system uses an adaptive control system (PG/PS) to precisely control the stimulation of muscles that work in opposition (agonist/antagonist). The study showed that the adaptive control system could accurately control hip movements in rodents during long sessions, especially when breaks were included to reduce muscle fatigue. This suggests the system could be useful for efficient movement therapy.
The adaptive PG/PS system may be well suited for generating cyclic joint movements using neuromuscular electrical stimulation therapy over lengthy sessions.
The ability to automatically customize stimulation parameters for an individual and automatically adjust these parameters to account for fatigue. The practical implication of this demonstration is that in the research laboratory or the clinic, the movement therapy can readily be performed on an individual in a manner that does not require special training or experience by the operator.
The ability of the adaptive PG/PS system to use implanted electrodes to control movements in the rodent model, which makes it a potentially useful tool in animal studies designed to investigate the mechanisms that underlie electrical stimulation-assisted neuromotor therapy.