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PRODID:-//Memento EPFL//
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SUMMARY:Neuroprosthetic technologies to improve motor recovery after spina
 l cord injury 
DTSTART:20160517T121500
DTEND:20160517T131500
DTSTAMP:20261002T004112Z
UID:afc8f72741083b0ee44d9a31b606e6491d376ca3ca55bd5141a368a9
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Grégoire Courtine\nSevere spinal cord injury leads to a ra
 nge of disabilities\, including permanent motor impairments that seriously
  diminish the patients’ quality of life. Over the past decade\, my team 
 and I developed a multipronged intervention that restored supraspinal cont
 rol over leg movements after severe spinal cord injury in rats. The interv
 ention acts over two time windows. Immediately\, electrochemical neuromodu
 lation of spinal circuits enables motor control of the paralysed legs. In 
 the long term\, will-powered training regimens enabled by electrochemical 
 neuromodulation and robotic assistance promote neuroplasticity of residual
  connections—an extensive rewiring that reestablishes voluntary control 
 of movement. To identify the physiological principles underlying the thera
 peutic effects of this intervention\, we used optogenetics\, computational
  modelling\, inactivation techniques and genetic manipulations. We found t
 hat our electrochemical neuromodulation therapy enables motor control thro
 ugh the recruitment of muscle spindle feedback circuits.\nThis framework s
 teered the design of spatially selective spinal implants that specifically
  target these circuits to modulate muscle synergies responsible for flexio
 n and extension of the legs. To reproduce the natural activation pattern o
 f these muscle synergies during locomotion\, we interfaced the leg motor c
 ortex activity with electrochemical neuromodulation therapies in non-human
  primates. This brain spinal interface instantly restored robust locomotor
  movements of a paralyzed leg in a non-human primate model of spinal cord 
 injury. Preliminary clinical studies suggest that our concepts and technol
 ogies are directly translatable to therapeutic strategies to augment motor
  recovery after spinal cord injury in humans.
LOCATION:SV 1717 A
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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