I-Corps: Non-invasive ultrasound technology for tactile stimulation to create a sense of touch

I-Corps：用于触觉刺激的非侵入性超声波技术，以产生触觉

• 批准号: 2103773
• 负责人: Roman Lubynsky
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-02-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2103773&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Non; invasive; ultrasound; technology

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of small, wearable devices that deliver virtual tactile perception to non-invasively stimulate sensory nerves creating a sense of touch to the user. This will enable new immersive virtual experiences for remote K-12 learning, therapeutic healthcare for patients with cognitive and motor function needs, and precise tactile feedback during recreational gaming as well as training for competitive athletes. Near-term commercial applications appear focus on healthcare to provide increased sensitivity in rehabilitation for patients such as those with spinal cord injuries (SCI) that currently rely on large sensorimotor haptic feedback devices that use simple motors to briefly restore the sense of touch. This device is designed as a wristband that emits ultrasonic waves that may more precisely target nerve clusters in the brain and spinal cord to produce a more sensitive response. The technology may be expanded to other neurotechnology applications in healthcare, education, and entertainment. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a wristband that emits ultrasonic waves that may precisely and noninvasively target nerve clusters in the brain and spinal cord as well as other areas. Traditional neuromodulation is done using electrical current, but recent research has demonstrated that focal ultrasound stimulation has several advantages over electrical stimulation, including deeper penetration into tissue and increased spatio-temporal specificity. The proposed technology may be used to noninvasively target nerves that would require invasive procedures for the electrical field to reach (e.g., deep brain stimulation). Focal ultrasound stimulation previously has been used for neuromodulation in the central nervous system (e.g., activation of neural circuits) and in the peripheral nervous system (activation of cholinergic nerves in the spleen and bladder muscle control). The core of this innovation is based on research to determine exactly how to spatiotemporally stimulate neural cells. The proposed device will combine serial imaging using ultrasound with novel deep learning algorithms trained to segment different body segments including nerves and neural computational models that encode learned stimulation spatiotemporal parameters of the focal ultrasound pulse for naturalistic neuromodulation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发小型可穿戴设备，这些设备可提供虚拟触觉感知，以非侵入性方式刺激感觉神经，为用户创造触觉。这将为远程 K-12 学习、为有认知和运动功能需求的患者提供治疗保健、以及在休闲游戏和竞技运动员训练期间提供精确的触觉反馈提供新的沉浸式虚拟体验。 近期商业应用似乎侧重于医疗保健，为脊髓损伤（SCI）患者等患者提供更高的康复敏感性，这些患者目前依赖于大型感觉运动触觉反馈设备，这些设备使用简单的电机来短暂恢复触觉。该设备被设计为腕带，可以发射超声波，可以更精确地瞄准大脑和脊髓中的神经簇，从而产生更灵敏的反应。该技术可能会扩展到医疗保健、教育和娱乐领域的其他神经技术应用。 I-Corps 项目基于发射超声波的腕带的开发，该腕带可以精确且无创地瞄准大脑、脊髓以及其他区域的神经簇。传统的神经调节是使用电流来完成的，但最近的研究表明，局灶超声刺激比电刺激具有多个优势，包括更深地穿透组织和增加时空特异性。所提出的技术可用于非侵入性地瞄准需要侵入性手术才能到达电场的神经（例如，深部脑刺激）。聚焦超声刺激以前已用于中枢神经系统（例如，神经回路的激活）和周围神经系统（脾和膀胱肌肉控制中的胆碱能神经的激活）的神经调节。这项创新的核心是基于研究来确定如何在时空上刺激神经细胞。拟议的设备将使用超声波的串行成像与新颖的深度学习算法相结合，这些算法经过训练可以分割不同的身体部位，包括神经和神经计算模型，这些模型对焦​​点超声脉冲的学习刺激时空参数进行编码，以进行自然神经调节。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。