Detection of optogenetic stimulation in somatosensory cortex by non-human primates–towards artificial tactile sensation.
PLoS ONE. 2014-12-26; 9(12): e114529
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114529
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1. PLoS One. 2014 Dec 26;9(12):e114529. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114529.
eCollection 2014.
Detection of optogenetic stimulation in somatosensory cortex by non-human
primates–towards artificial tactile sensation.
May T(1), Ozden I(1), Brush B(1), Borton D(2), Wagner F(3), Agha N(1), Sheinberg
DL(3), Nurmikko AV(4).
Author information:
(1)School of engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United
States of America.
(2)School of engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United
States of America; Center for Neuroprosthetics and the Brain Mind Institute,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
(3)Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United
States of America.
(4)School of engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United
States of America; Department of Physics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode
Island, United States of America.
Neuroprosthesis research aims to enable communication between the brain and
external assistive devices while restoring lost functionality such as occurs from
stroke, spinal cord injury or neurodegenerative diseases. In future closed-loop
sensorimotor prostheses, one approach is to use neuromodulation as direct
stimulus to the brain to compensate for a lost sensory function and help the
brain to integrate relevant information for commanding external devices via, e.g.
movement intention. Current neuromodulation techniques rely mainly of electrical
stimulation. Here we focus specifically on the question of eliciting a
biomimetically relevant sense of touch by direct stimulus of the somatosensory
cortex by introducing optogenetic techniques as an alternative to electrical
stimulation. We demonstrate that light activated opsins can be introduced to
target neurons in the somatosensory cortex of non-human primates and be optically
activated to create a reliably detected sensation which the animal learns to
interpret as a tactile sensation localized within the hand. The accomplishment
highlighted here shows how optical stimulation of a relatively small group of
mostly excitatory somatosensory neurons in the nonhuman primate brain is
sufficient for eliciting a useful sensation from data acquired by simultaneous
electrophysiology and from behavioral metrics. In this first report to date on
optically neuromodulated behavior in the somatosensory cortex of nonhuman
primates we do not yet dissect the details of the sensation the animals exerience
or contrast it to those evoked by electrical stimulation, issues of considerable
future interest.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114529
PMCID: PMC4277269
PMID: 25541938 [Indexed for MEDLINE]