Development of neural prosthetic device for restoration of tactile function

The success of neuroprosthetic devices for the restoration of motor function in patients afflicted with paralyzing neurological disease or injury will require some restoration of tactile function as well. We are developing a method to restore tactile function using a novel ceramic-based multi-site electrode that can both record and stimulate neurons in the central nervous system. Our results show that we can successfully record neural activity and stimulate limb movement in the spinal cord of frogs. In addition, we can record neural activity from the somatosensory cortex of rats chronically implanted with these electrodes. These initial results suggest that this method can be used to develop a tactile prosthetic device that records somatosensory information from the spinal cord and, bypassing the site of spinal injury, returns the signal to the cortex for further processing by the brain