Purdue University Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering assistant professor Maria C. Dadarlat and graduate student Samuel J. Senneka have published groundbreaking work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Their featured article, "Integration of learned artificial sensation with vision during freely-moving navigation," explores how the brain learns to process artificial sensory information and integrate it with natural vision to guide movement.

For patients using a brain-computer interface to control a prosthetic limb, replacing lost motor function is a complex challenge. To finely control a prosthesis, individuals require artificial proprioceptive feedback in addition to vision. While intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) can elicit sensory perceptions to replace this lost signal, the brain must learn to interpret this new artificial sensation.

To address this, Dadarlat and Senneka developed a behavioral task to examine how ICMS can encode multi-variable, task-relevant information. The researchers demonstrated that subjects quickly learned to use the ICMS signal to locate targets. More importantly, the research revealed that performance on multimodal trials, using both natural vision and artificial ICMS sensation, significantly exceeded performance when relying on either sense alone. This rapid integration provides a highly efficient testing protocol to develop new algorithms for encoding artificial proprioception, paving the way for more intuitive and natural neural prostheses.

"Our results demonstrate the surprising flexibility of neural circuits in adapting to and integrating novel, artificial forms of sensory information," Senneka said.

"Our work directly paves the way for rapid, robust, and naturalistic sensory neural prostheses by leveraging the native plasticity of neural circuits in the brain," Dadarlat said.

Dadarlat and Senneka’s research aligns with Purdue's presidential One Health initiative, which involves research at the intersection of human, animal and plant health and well-being. Their research was generously supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health.