A freely-moving monkey treadmill model
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Motor neuroscience and brain-machine interface (BMI) design is based on examining how the brain controls voluntary movement, typically by recording neural activity and behavior from animal models. Recording technologies used with these animal models have traditionally limited the range of behaviors that can be studied, and thus the generality of science and engineering research. In this dissertation, I present a freely-moving animal model using neural and behavioral recording technologies that do not constrain movement. The freely-moving rhesus monkey model employs technology that transmits neural activity from an intracortical array using a head-mounted device and records behavior through computer vision using markerless motion capture. This dissertation demonstrates the flexibility and utility of this new monkey model, including the first recordings from motor cortex while rhesus monkeys walk quadrupedally on a treadmill. Using this monkey model, it is shown that multi-unit threshold-crossing neural activity encodes the phase of walking and that the average firing rate of the threshold crossings covaries with the speed of individual steps. On a population level, neural state-space trajectories of walking at different speeds have similar rotational dynamics in some dimensions that evolve at the step rate of walking, yet robustly separate by speed in other state-space dimensions. Freely-moving animal models may allow neuroscientists to examine a wider range of behaviors and can provide a flexible experimental paradigm for examining the neural mechanisms that underlie movement generation across behaviors and environments. For BMIs, freely-moving animal models have the potential to aid prosthetic design by examining how neural encoding changes with posture, environment, and other real-world context changes. Understanding this new realm of behavior in more naturalistic settings is essential for overall progress of basic motor neuroscience and for the successful translation of BMIs to people with paralysis.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Foster, Justin Daniel |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Shenoy, Krishna V. (Krishna Vaughn) |
| Thesis advisor | Shenoy, Krishna V. (Krishna Vaughn) |
| Thesis advisor | Meng, Teresa H |
| Thesis advisor | Newsome, William T |
| Advisor | Meng, Teresa H |
| Advisor | Newsome, William T |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Justin Daniel Foster. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Justin Daniel Foster
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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