WS 4: Biomimetic approaches to restore somatosensation

3:00pm CET, 9:00am EST, 6:00am PST, 1:00am AEDT, 10:00pm CST

Registration deadline: April 1

Presenters
Robert Gaunt, University of Pittsburgh
Sliman Bensmaia, University of Chicago
Karthik Kumaravelu, Duke University
Alberto Mazzoni, The BioRobotics Institute Scuola Superiore Sant’ Anna
Emily Graczyk, Case Western Reserve University
Luke Bashford, California Institute of Technology
Christopher Hughes, University of Pittsburgh

Abstract
When people lose the ability to move and interact with the world because of a spinal cord injury or amputation, the rehabilitation focus is often on restoring movement. However, without somatosensory feedback from the hand, achieving natural and intuitive interactions will likely prove difficult. In recent years, there has been a surge of interest to address this issue and restore somatosensory feedback through electrical stimulation of the somatosensory cortex and peripheral nerves using invasive electrodes. While several labs have promising results, creating sensations that feel natural or that substantially improve function remains a challenge. To improve upon these simple stimulus trains, biomimetic stimulus trains could be used, in which stimulation is designed to mimic normal neural responses. However, there is currently no consensus on what biomimetic features should be used, how to map stimulus parameters to these biomimetic features, and whether there is evidence that biomimetic stimulation is useful. This workshop will bring together experts in somatosensory neuroscience and computational modeling, as well as human peripheral nerve and cortical stimulation to discuss the principles of biomimetic stimulation, how it may be useful, how to measure success, what the current limitations are, and how it can be improved moving forward.

Intended audience
This workshop is intended for anyone interested in learning about how to generate useful somatosensory percepts using neural interfaces, including engineers, scientists and clinicians. There will be a variety of speakers with backgrounds in neuroscience, neural engineering, clinical trials, and computational modeling. The talks will provide sufficient background for those less familiar with somatosensory neural interfaces to follow along.

Learning objectives
1. Participants will be able to define what the term ?biomimetic? means in the context of somatosensory neural interfaces
2. Participants will learn how basic neuroscience and computational approaches directly inform electrical stimulation parameter design
3. Participants will learn how biomimetic stimulation trains differ from standard stimulus trains and what the effects on sensation and function are