Speaker: Lindsey Hauck
Advisor: Hamid Charkhkar
Title: The Influence of Restored Plantar Sensation on the Residual Limb Muscle Activity of Individuals with Lower Limb Loss
Location: Sears 439
Abstract: Lower limb loss affects both the sensory and motor systems, leading to locomotor deficits and decreased independence. Our laboratory elicits plantar sensations originating from the surface of the missing foot by using high-density nerve cuff electrodes to stimulate sensory nerves in the residual limb. This stimulation has been applied to a sensory neural prosthesis (SNP) that has improved gait symmetry, stumble recovery, locomotor adaptation, and standing stability. However, the mechanisms of these kinematic changes have not yet been thoroughly explored at a muscular level. For this experiment, participants walked on an instrumented treadmill while intramuscular electromyography (EMG) was recorded from their residual limb with and without the SNP activated. Preliminary data has demonstrated a significant difference between muscle activity with and without the SNP activated for all participants across multiple muscles and gait phases.
These findings show promise in the ability of restored plantar sensation to improve the control of lower limb myoelectric prostheses. Adaptation to myoelectric lower limb prostheses has been relatively unexplored, even though adaptation to prostheses can greatly impact device performance. Throughout prosthesis calibration, the user and the controller co-adapt. However, this adaptation lacks guidance from the sensory system of the lower limb. I will present a proposed experiment to investigate the impact of restored plantar sensation on the adaptation to a myoelectric prosthesis