Descripción del proyecto
Utilización de la estimulación ultrasónica para recuperar la sensibilidad en prótesis de extremidades
Las prótesis de extremidades que se usan en las personas con amputaciones carecen de sensibilidad natural y táctil. El proyecto SOMA, financiado con fondos europeos, tiene por objeto desarrollar una nueva interfaz basada en algoritmos que permita detectar la presión mecánica, el dolor y los cambios de temperatura. Mediante el uso de tecnologías avanzadas de ingeniería de tejidos y de modelizaciones computacionales, los científicos planean desarrollar un modelo «in vitro» con inervación cutánea para estudiar los receptores sensoriales y las señales neurológicas aferentes. La comprensión de las relaciones espaciotemporales entre los estímulos cutáneos y las señales neurológicas ayudará a los científicos a aplicar una estimulación ultrasónica concentrada en el sistema nervioso periférico. Se espera que este avance ofrezca a las personas con amputaciones un control sensomotor de las prótesis para las extremidades superiores.
Objetivo
The SOMA project tackles three grand challenges in the field of upper-limb neuroprosthetics: a) to develop a completely novel low invasive peripheral interface for restoring natural and multimodal tactile sensations in amputee subjects, with high selectivity and discrimination capabilities thanks to focused UltraSound (US) stimulation, b) to develop and validate an in-vitro model of the innervated natural skin and its sensory receptors, through the application of cutting edge tissue engineering technology and neurocomputational modelling, for the study of spatio-temporal relationships between cutaneous stimuli and afferent neural signals, and for the validation of stimulation techniques of the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), c) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the newly developed interface through the closed-loop sensori-motor control of an upper-limb prosthesis.
The new insights obtained with in-vivo experiments revealed that FUS stimulation does not appear to be a reliable and safe method for constituting a suitable nerve interface for use in humans. Still keeping the ultimate goal of developing a novel solution of peripheral interface with reduced invasiveness, a Hybrid US-electrical stimulation system is being investigated, together with the fallback option of a fully implantable and wireless solution for electrical nerve stimulation. Therefore, the SOMA system will rely on focused US probes for decoding motion intention, implantable wireless technologies for feeding sensory information encoded through new algorithms capable of generating multimodal sensations related to mechanoreceptors (for mechanical pressure), nociceptors (for pain) and thermoreceptors (for changes in temperature).
The in-vitro model of the somatosensory system will be composed of a biohybrid fully innervated sensitive skin, which replicates in-vitro the complex cutaneous somatosensory system of the human skin. The project aims to experimentally validate the in-vitro model, to unravel the role of the sense of touch in both exteroception and proprioception and to provide as ultimate goal a test-bed useful to investigate and test new stimulation techniques. The development of the novel peripheral interface and the in-vitro model will be carried out in parallel through a comparative analysis with the most advanced state-of-the art stimulation techniques and an experimental validation with in-vivo tests on animal models. Finally, a clinical validation of the SOMA technologies on amputees will be carried out.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2019-2020-01
Régimen de financiación
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinador
00128 Roma
Italia