BME Seminar: A. Bolu Ajiboye
Monday, February 19, 2024 - 12:00 p.m.
A. Bolu Ajiboye, PhD
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
Elmer Lincoln Lindseth Endowed Chair
Biomedical Engineering Research Scientist
Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center
Rehabilitation R&D Service
FES Center of Excellence
“REconnecting the Hand and Arm to the Brain (ReHAB): Bi-directional Neuroprostheses for Sensorimotor Functional Restoration”
Keating 103
Zoom link | Password: BearDown
Hosts: Dr. Mario Romero-Ortega and Dr. Shang Song
(Instructor permission required for enrolled students to attend via Zoom)
Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation by contacting the Disability Resource Center at 621-3268 (V/TTY).
Abstract:
Cortically controlled neuroprostheses have long been posited as the “holy grail” for intracortical brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). The efficacy of BMIs has advanced to the point where a small number of laboratories around the US now run human clinical trials with people with chronic paralysis. As part of the ReHAB Clinical Trial,my Laboratory for Intelligent Machine-Brain Systems (LIMBS) investigates using BMIs to control Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) systems for restoring reach-to-grasp movements to persons with chronic high cervical spinal cord injury. This lecture will discuss several of our clinical, technological and scientific advances towards developing a bi-directional BMI controlled FES arm neuroprosthesis for restoring motor and somatosensory function. The highlight of this lecture will be the demonstration of a current ReHAB participant, an individual with chronictetraplegia, eight years post-injury using a multi-nodal BMI with multi-contact FES nerve cuff electrodes to volitionally and independently perform functional tasks, such as self-feeding and shaking hands and discerning somatosensory feedback through intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). This lecture will also discuss use of human BMI systems as a platform for interrogating fundamental questions of human sensorimotor control, including understanding underlying mechanisms of motor performance and learning, and internal representations of kinetic, kinematic and somatosensory parameters. Finally, this lecture will discuss steps towards clinical translation of viable FES+BMI neuroprosthetic systems for potential at-home use.
Bio:
A. Bolu Ajiboye, PhD is the Elmer Lincoln Lindseth Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. He also holds an appointment as a Biomedical Engineering Scientist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. He received his dual BS degree in biomedical and electrical engineering, as well as a minor in computer science, from Duke University (Durham, NC) in 2000. He then received his master's (2003) and doctoral (2008) degrees from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). Dr. Ajiboye is the director of the Laboratory for Intelligent Machine-Brain Systems (LIMBS), where his main research interest is in the development and control of bi-directional brain-machine interface (BMI) neuroprosthetic technologies for restoring motor and sensory function toindividuals who have experienced severely debilitating injuries to the nervous system, such as spinal cord injury and stroke. Currently, he is interested in understanding at a systems level the relationships between the firing patterns of multi-neuronal networks and the kinetic (muscle activity and force) and kinematic (limb position and velocity) outputs of these neural systems in the control of upper-limb movements, as well as encoding models of somatosensory percepts for sensory restoration through cortical stimulation. The end goal of his research is to develop BMI systems that allow for more natural interactions with one’s surrounding environment, and more natural control of assistive technologies, such as artificial limbs and functional electrical stimulation (FES) based systems. Additionally, his research focuses on understanding natural muscle coordination patterns involved in motor coordination and how these patterns can be usedin neuroprosthetic systems to restore lost or compromised function through FES.