Assistive Technology and Biomechatronics Engineering

This Special Issue will focus on assistive technology (AT) to address biomechanical and control of movement issues in individuals with impaired health, whether as a result of disability, disease, or injury. All over the world, technologies are developed that make human life richer and more comfortable. However, there are people who are not able to benefit from these technologies. Research can include development of new assistive technology to promote more effective movement, the use of existing technology to assess and treat movement disorders, the use and effectiveness of virtual rehabilitation, or theoretical issues, such as modeling, which underlie the biomechanics or motor control of movement disorders. This Special Issue will also cover Internet of Things (IoT) sensing technology and nursing care robot applications that can be applied to new assistive technologies. IoT includes data, more specifically gathering them efficiently and using them to enable intelligence, control, and new applications

Exploring the role of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons in the initiation of self paced actions

RESUMO: Decidir quando nos movemos é essencial para a nossa sobrevivência. A perda de neurónios dopaminérgicos (DANs) na substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), a alteração patológica característica da doença de Parkinson (PD), causa deficits na iniciação do movimento e lentificação do movimento. A teoria dominante é que o papel dos DANs da SNc no movimento deve-se a mudanças mantidas da atividade destes neurónios (atividade tónica) enquanto as alterações fásicas da atividade estão envolvidas na aprendizagem baseada na recompensa. No entanto, foi demonstrado que a atividade fásica dos DANs da SNc se correlaciona com o início e terminação de uma sequência de ações aprendida. Contudo, continua por esclarecer se esta atividade é ou não necessária para a iniciação ‘self-paced’ de sequências de ações. A maioria dos estudos anteriores que incidiram sobre movimento ou iniciação de ações utilizaram lesões crónicas ou fármacos para manipular a via nigro-estriada. Estes métodos não são ideais para estudar o papel de populações neuronais específicas devido a limitações tais como a baixa resolução temporal e a baixa especificidade destas manipulações. Devido a isto, o papel dos DANs da SNc na iniciação de movimentos/ações ‘self-paced’ continua a ser pouco claro. Para resolver esta questão nós utilizámos uma abordagem optogenética para gravar, visualizar e manipular a atividade de DANs da SNc com uma elevada especificidade neuronal e resolução temporal. Descobrimos que quando murganhos se movimentavam livremente num ‘open field’, os DANs da SNc aumentavam a sua atividade de forma transitória, antes do início do movimento. Para testar se este aumento de atividade era ou não necessário para a iniciação do movimento, expressámos uma opsina inibitória (ArchT) nos DANs da SNc dos murganhos. Utilizando esta estratégia foto-inibimos estes neurónios transitoriamente e descobrimos que conseguíamos perturbar a probabilidade e o vigor das iniciações de movimento mas não conseguíamos modificar a aceleração dos animais quando estes já se encontravam em movimento. Em seguida quisemos saber se uma breve activação destes neurónios era suficiente para promover a iniciação de movimento. Para conseguirmos isto expressámos ChR2 nos DANs da SNc e ativámos transitoriamente estes neurónios enquanto os murganhos se moviam livremente. Ao contrário da experiência de inibição, esta breve ativação promoveu a iniciação do movimento quando os murganhos se encontravam imóveis, e de uma forma semelhante não modificou a aceleração dos murganhos quando estes já se encontravam em movimento. Quando treinámos os murganhos para realizarem uma sequência de acções (recompensando-os se eles pressionassem uma alavanca 8 vezes) descobrimos que os DANs da SNc aumentavam a sua actividade transitoriamente imediatamente antes do início e o final da sequência. Para além disto, estes neurónios na sua maioria correspondiam a uma população que não respondia à recompensa. Quando inibimos transitoriamente os DANs da SNC imediatamente antes do inicio da sequência os murganhos exibiram um aumento da latência para iniciarem a sequência. Contudo, não conseguimos perturbar a execução da sequência quando fizemos a mesma inibição após a sequência ter sido iniciada. Os nossos resultados demonstram que a actividade dos DANs da SNc modulam não apenas a probabilidade mas também o vigor dos movimentos futuros mas não modula o movimento durante a sua execução. Isto sugere que o ‘gating’ de iniciações ‘selfpaced’ acontece através de efeitos permissivos da dopamina nos circuitos estriatais que por sua vez recebem a informação relativa a que ações iniciar de outros ‘inputs’. A depleção de dopamina na PD é crónica. Os estudos sobre o papel da dopamina no movimento utilizando modelos animais de depleção crónica são bastante importantes mas têm uma utilidade limitada para a compreensão do papel dinâmico dos DANs da SNc nos circuitos para os quais projetam. O nosso trabalho, ao demonstrar a relevância da atividade transitória destes neurónios imediatamente antes do início de movimentos ‘self-paced’, sugere que poderá ser benéfico desenvolver terapêuticas que providenciem modulações transitórias dos circuitos dos gânglios da base quando os doentes com PD querem iniciar uma ação (e.g. estimulação cerebral profunda em ‘closed–loop’ despoletada por atividade cortical nas áreas relacionadas com o planeamento motor).ABSTRACT: Deciding if and when to move is critical for survival. Loss of dopamine neurons (DANs) in substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD), causes deficits in movement initiation and slowness of movement. The dominant theory is that the role of SNc DANs in movement is mainly due to sustained changes in their firing (tonic changes) while phasic changes are involved in rewardbased learning. Nevertheless, phasic activity of SNc DANs has been found to correlate with the start and finish of a learned action sequence. However, it remains unclear whether this activity is necessary for self-paced action initiation. The majority of previous studies on movement/action initiation have used chronic lesions or drugs to manipulate the nigrostriatal pathway. These methods are not ideal to study the role of specific neuron populations due to constraints such as temporal resolution and/or specificity of the manipulations. Thus, the role of SNc DANs in self-paced movement/action initiation remains unsettled. To tackle this question we used an optogenetic approach to record, image and manipulate the activity of genetically identified SNc DANs with high specificity and temporal resolution. We found that when mice were freely moving in an open field SNc DANs transiently increased their activity just before self-paced movements were initiated. To test whether this transient increase in activity was necessary for movement initiation we expressed an inhibitory opsin (ArchT) in SNc DANs of mice. We proceeded to briefly photoinhibit these neurons and found that we could disturb the probability and vigor of movement initiations but we could not change mice's acceleration when they were already moving. Next we wanted to know whether brief activation of SNc DANs was sufficient to promote movement initiation. To achieve this we expressed ChR2 in mice's SNc DANs and briefly activated these neurons while mice were freely moving. Contrary to the inhibition experiment, this brief activation promoted movement initiation when mice were immobile and in a similar way it did not change significantly mice's acceleration when they were already moving. When we trained mice to perform a learned action sequence (by rewarding them if they pressed a lever 8 times) we found that SNc DANs increased their activity transiently just before the start and finish of the action sequence. Furthermore, these neurons were largely non-overlapping with reward related DANs. When we briefly inhibited SNc DANs just before the action sequence, mice increased their latency to initiate the sequence. However, inhibition of these neurons when mice had already started the action sequence did not change their performance. Our results show that the activity of SNc DANs modulates not only the probability but also the vigor of future movements but that it does not modulate movements once they have been initiated. This suggests that the gating of self-paced initiation happens by permissive effects of dopamine on downstream striatal circuits that would receive information about which plans to execute from other inputs. Dopamine depletion in PD is chronic. Studies of the role of dopamine in movement in chronic models of depletion are very valuable, but have limited our understanding of the dynamic role of SNc DAN activity in downstream circuits. Our work, by highlighting the relevance of transient activity of these neurons before self-paced movement initiation, suggests that it could be beneficial to pursue treatments aimed at providing transient modulations of basal ganglia circuitry when patients initiate movements, e.g. via closed-loop deep brain stimulation triggered by activity in cortical areas related to motor planning

Rehabilitation Engineering

Population ageing has major consequences and implications in all areas of our daily life as well as other important aspects, such as economic growth, savings, investment and consumption, labour markets, pensions, property and care from one generation to another. Additionally, health and related care, family composition and life-style, housing and migration are also affected. Given the rapid increase in the aging of the population and the further increase that is expected in the coming years, an important problem that has to be faced is the corresponding increase in chronic illness, disabilities, and loss of functional independence endemic to the elderly (WHO 2008). For this reason, novel methods of rehabilitation and care management are urgently needed. This book covers many rehabilitation support systems and robots developed for upper limbs, lower limbs as well as visually impaired condition. Other than upper limbs, the lower limb research works are also discussed like motorized foot rest for electric powered wheelchair and standing assistance device

Development of a Bioimpedance based human machine interface

Thesis (M.Eng., Electrical Engineering)--Prince of Songkla University, 200

Surface EMG decomposition using a novel approach for blind source separation

We introduce a new method to perform a blind deconvolution of the surface electromyogram (EMG) signals generated by isometric muscle contractions. The method extracts the information from the raw EMG signals detected only on the skin surface, enabling longtime noninvasive monitoring of the electromuscular properties. Its preliminary results show that surface EMG signals can be used to determine the number of active motor units, the motor unit firing rate and the shape of the average action potential in each motor unit

Noninvasive methods for children\u27s cholesterol level determination

Today, there is a controversy about the role of cholesterol in infants and the measurement and management of blood cholesterol in children. Several scientific evidences are supporting relationship between elevated blood cholesterol in children and high cholesterol in adults and development of adult arteriosclerotic diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. Therefore controlling the level of blood cholesterol in children is very important for the health of the whole population. Non-invasive methods are much more convenient for the children because of their anxieties about blood examinations. In this paper we will present a new try to find non-invasive methods for determining the level of blood cholesterol in children with the use of intelligent system

Hybrid wheelchair controller for handicapped and quadriplegic patients

In this dissertation, a hybrid wheelchair controller for handicapped and quadriplegic patient is proposed. The system has two sub-controllers which are the voice controller and the head tilt controller. The system aims to help quadriplegic, handicapped, elderly and paralyzed patients to control a robotic wheelchair using voice commands and head movements instead of a traditional joystick controller. The multi-input design makes the system more flexible to adapt to the available body signals. The low-cost design is taken into consideration as it allows more patients to use this system

OBSERVER-BASED-CONTROLLER FOR INVERTED PENDULUM MODEL

This paper presents a state space control technique for inverted pendulum system. The system is a common classical control problem that has been widely used to test multiple control algorithms because of its nonlinear and unstable behavior. Full state feedback based on pole placement and optimal control is applied to the inverted pendulum system to achieve desired design specification which are 4 seconds settling time and 5% overshoot. The simulation and optimization of the full state feedback controller based on pole placement and optimal control techniques as well as the performance comparison between these techniques is described comprehensively. The comparison is made to choose the most suitable technique for the system that have the best trade-off between settling time and overshoot. Besides that, the observer design is analyzed to see the effect of pole location and noise present in the system

A Review of Resonant Converter Control Techniques and The Performances

paper first discusses each control technique and then gives experimental results and/or performance to highlights their merits. The resonant converter used as a case study is not specified to just single topology instead it used few topologies such as series-parallel resonant converter (SPRC), LCC resonant converter and parallel resonant converter (PRC). On the other hand, the control techniques presented in this paper are self-sustained phase shift modulation (SSPSM) control, self-oscillating power factor control, magnetic control and the H-∞ robust control technique