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Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex

Microstimulation in the somatosensory cortex can evoke artificial tactile percepts and can be incorporated into bidirectional brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to restore function after injury or disease. However, little is known about how stimulation parameters themselves affect perception. Here, we...

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Autores principales: Hughes, Christopher L, Flesher, Sharlene N, Weiss, Jeffrey M, Boninger, Michael, Collinger, Jennifer L, Gaunt, Robert A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8376245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34313221
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65128
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author Hughes, Christopher L
Flesher, Sharlene N
Weiss, Jeffrey M
Boninger, Michael
Collinger, Jennifer L
Gaunt, Robert A
author_facet Hughes, Christopher L
Flesher, Sharlene N
Weiss, Jeffrey M
Boninger, Michael
Collinger, Jennifer L
Gaunt, Robert A
author_sort Hughes, Christopher L
collection PubMed
description Microstimulation in the somatosensory cortex can evoke artificial tactile percepts and can be incorporated into bidirectional brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to restore function after injury or disease. However, little is known about how stimulation parameters themselves affect perception. Here, we stimulated through microelectrode arrays implanted in the somatosensory cortex of two human participants with cervical spinal cord injury and varied the stimulus amplitude, frequency, and train duration. Increasing the amplitude and train duration increased the perceived intensity on all tested electrodes. Surprisingly, we found that increasing the frequency evoked more intense percepts on some electrodes but evoked less-intense percepts on other electrodes. These different frequency–intensity relationships were divided into three groups, which also evoked distinct percept qualities at different stimulus frequencies. Neighboring electrode sites were more likely to belong to the same group. These results support the idea that stimulation frequency directly controls tactile perception and that these different percepts may be related to the organization of somatosensory cortex, which will facilitate principled development of stimulation strategies for bidirectional BCIs.
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spelling pubmed-83762452021-08-20 Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex Hughes, Christopher L Flesher, Sharlene N Weiss, Jeffrey M Boninger, Michael Collinger, Jennifer L Gaunt, Robert A eLife Neuroscience Microstimulation in the somatosensory cortex can evoke artificial tactile percepts and can be incorporated into bidirectional brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to restore function after injury or disease. However, little is known about how stimulation parameters themselves affect perception. Here, we stimulated through microelectrode arrays implanted in the somatosensory cortex of two human participants with cervical spinal cord injury and varied the stimulus amplitude, frequency, and train duration. Increasing the amplitude and train duration increased the perceived intensity on all tested electrodes. Surprisingly, we found that increasing the frequency evoked more intense percepts on some electrodes but evoked less-intense percepts on other electrodes. These different frequency–intensity relationships were divided into three groups, which also evoked distinct percept qualities at different stimulus frequencies. Neighboring electrode sites were more likely to belong to the same group. These results support the idea that stimulation frequency directly controls tactile perception and that these different percepts may be related to the organization of somatosensory cortex, which will facilitate principled development of stimulation strategies for bidirectional BCIs. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8376245/ /pubmed/34313221 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65128 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) .
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Hughes, Christopher L
Flesher, Sharlene N
Weiss, Jeffrey M
Boninger, Michael
Collinger, Jennifer L
Gaunt, Robert A
Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title_full Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title_fullStr Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title_full_unstemmed Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title_short Perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
title_sort perception of microstimulation frequency in human somatosensory cortex
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8376245/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34313221
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65128
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