A neurorobotic platform enabling the development of therapies to restore arm movements after neurotrauma

A novel robotic platform for am movement was developed and validated within the collaboration between the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), led by Silvestro Micera, professor at The Biorobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Translational NeuroEngineering at EPFL, and by Grégoire Courtine, professor at the EPFL and Director of the EPFL-CHUV .NeuroRestore Center. The development of this neurorobotic platform, tested at the preclinical level on animal model, will support the conception, assessment and optimization of rehabilitation therapies, neuroprosthetic treatments or other biological repair approaches after neurotrauma such as spinal cord injury and stroke.

The concurrent recording of muscular, kinetic, kinematic, and neural data during arm movement supported by the robotic platform permitted high-resolution quantification of motor performances thanks to an offline detailed analysis of the extracted parameters. These recordings brought out, for example, the importance of a voluntary engagement of the subject during rehabilitation in order to engage the activation of the corticospinal tract neurons, which are critical for movement recovery.

The robotic platform established a flexible and well-controlled environment that is particularly advantageous for developing neuroprosthetic treatments. Courtine showed that epidural electrical stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord restored walking in several individuals with paralysis due to spinal cord injury. Here, the team translated this concept for the recovery of arm movement. They concepived an implantable neuroprosthesis to stimulation the cervical spinal cord.

“The promising results achieved during the platform validation anticipates the critical role that it will play for the development and understanding of new therapies that will be translated into treatments for humans – comment Maria Pasquini, Nicholas D. James and Inssia Dewany, first authors of the paper – this innovative advantageous environment has already supported the validation of the therapeutic concepts through which epidural electrical stimulation can modulate the muscular activity of the arm after spinal cord injury. After confirmation and insight of these preliminary results, this concept will be translated for the development of an upper limb neuroprosthesis”.