Movement Recovery Lab Members Present at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Conference 2024

Congratulations to our Movement Recovery Lab members who made successful presentations at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Chicago in October. This 5-day annual global neuroscience event gathers scientists from around the world to discuss new ideas and share their research.

Associate Research Scientist James McIntosh, PhD, and Data Scientist Vishveshwar Tyagi, MS, presented their work on spinal cord stimulation (SCS) at the podium.  

Spinal cord stimulation can activate the body's sensorimotor circuits using either epidural (intraoperative) or transcutaneous (non-invasive) methods, but direct comparisons between these approaches are limited. Dr. McIntosh presented a comparison of both methods' capabilities to enhance the efficacy of brain stimulation as measured through muscle responses. The results showed that epidural SCS, when paired with brain stimulation, produced facilitation 10 to 50 times greater compared to transcutaneous SCS, highlighting a tradeoff between the two modalities currently being explored for motor recovery after SCI.

One of the ways to measure efficacy is through muscle recruitment curves, which plot the strength of motor responses against stimulation intensity. Vishweshwar Tyagi presented a hierarchical Bayesian framework designed to estimate these curves even with small sample sizes, addressing common limitations in current methods. The new method demonstrated superior performance, reducing estimation errors and requiring fewer participants for equivalent statistical power. The framework, implemented in an open-source Python library called hbMEP, is applicable for analyzing electrical and electromagnetic stimulation data.

Also at the conference, Research Technician Derrick Yoo shared progress on an automated rodent behavior task, which tests forelimb sensation through fine touch sensation. Fine touch shares a sensory pathway with other modalities that are important for movement, such as proprioception and vibrotactile sensation. This system addresses a gap of limited availability of rodent forelimb behavior tasks that can quantitatively measure somatosensation in health and/or recovery. When complete, it will enable laboratory testing of forelimb (arm/hand) sensation, a critical element to dexterity in people with hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

Director of the Movement Recovery Lab, Jason B. Carmel, MD, PhD presented at the pre-conferenec meeting and discussed the development of paired brain and spinal cord stimulation in animals that induces a lasting and beneficial change in movement that we call spinal cord associative plasticity. The lab is adapting this approach to people using two approaches. The first tests pairing brain and spinal cord stimulation in people undergoing clinically indicated spine surgery. The other uses non-invasive brain and spinal cord stimulation in healthy people and those with impaired arm and hand function. The approach appears effective in both heathy individuals and those with impaired arm and hand function.