Bewegungsplanung in der Großhirnrinde - Signale zur Steuerung von kognitiven Neuroprothesen

Abstract

The growing knowledge about information processing in the brain and improved electrophysiological methods make novel neuroprosthetic devices feasible. Kinematic prostheses, which compensate limited motor abilities with artificial effectors, can be controlled directly using neural signals from the central nervous system. Movement-related parameters are encoded in various ways in the brain. This makes different approaches plausible to extract movement parameters from neuronal activity. The idea of cognitive neuroprostheses is to interpret activity of cerebral cortex with respect to movement plans or goals, rather than decoding direct motor commands to the periphery or its immediate antecedents. Subdivisions of the parietal and premotor cortices encode reach movement goals in different reference frames during the planning phase of a movement. Using control parameters that reflect movement goals in visual extrinsic coordinates is beneficial, since visual-sensory, but not proprioceptive feedback about one's own movement is available during prosthetic control. Many basic aspects of the neuronal implementation of goal-directed movement planning, although, are not well understood yet. On the background of neuroprosthetic research, investigating the interplay between external stimuli and internal goals in the planning and control of voluntary movements means both, pursuing basic and applied science.