Event Date:
December 1st 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Friday Morning NEC seminar
Speaker: Bronwyn Spilker
Advisor: Dr. Emily Graczyk
Title: Coapplication of stimulation modalities to improve sensation
Abstract: A person's sense of touch plays a critical role in many aspects of their life, including manipulating objects in the world around them, and strengthening emotional connections with other people. Both peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) and intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) can restore tactile sensation to people living with physical disabilities, such as spinal cord injury (SCI) or amputation. Recent work has begun to explore what the relative benefits and limitations are for these stimulation approaches individually, by directly comparing the perceived sensations evoked by PNS, ICMS, and mechanical activation of the residual sensory pathway in a participant with AIS-B C3/C4 SCI.
The work I am proposing explores the coapplication of multiple stimulation modalities to leverage the relative benefits of each stimulation modality and improve the evoked sensation. We will be stimulating randomized interleaved trials of individual PNS, individual ICMS, or simultaneous PNS and ICMS. We will be collecting perceptual experience outcome measures after each trial, including perceived modality, intensity, and quality words chosen from a provided word bank. This data will give further insight into how providing simultaneous stimulation from multiple modalities affects the evoked sensory experience of the user. The knowledge gained from this work will be used to improve future sensory rehabilitation efforts for people with a variety of somatosensory deficits.