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Synthesis of optimal electrical stimulation patterns for functional motion restoration: applied to spinal cord-injured patients

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Abstract

We investigated the synthesis of electrical stimulation patterns for functional movement restoration in human paralyzed limbs. We considered the knee joint system, co-activated by the stimulated quadriceps and hamstring muscles. This synthesis is based on optimized functional electrical stimulation (FES) patterns to minimize muscular energy consumption and movement efficiency criteria. This two-part work includes a multi-scale physiological muscle model, based on Huxley’s formulation. In the simulation, three synthesis strategies were investigated and compared in terms of muscular energy consumption and co-contraction levels. In the experimental validation, the synthesized FES patterns were carried out on the quadriceps-knee joint system of four complete spinal cord injured subjects. Surface stimulation was applied to all subjects, except for one FES-implanted subject who received neural stimulation. In each experimental validation, the model was adapted to the subject through a parameter identification procedure. Simulation results were successful and showed high co-contraction levels when reference trajectories were tracked. Experimental validation results were encouraging, as the desired and measured trajectories showed good agreement, with an 8.4 % rms error in a subject without substantial time-varying behavior. We updated the maximal isometric force in the model to account for time-varying behavior, which improved the average rms errors from 31.4 to 13.9 % for all subjects.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the patients for their participation and patience, and also Maria Papaiordanidou, Robin Passama and Patrick Benoit for their help during the experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DEMAR Group, LIRMM, INRIA, University of Montpellier 2, CNRS, 860 Rue Saint Priest, 34095, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Mourad Benoussaad, Philippe Poignet, Mitsuhiro Hayashibe, Christine Azevedo-Coste & David Guiraud

  2. PROPARA Rehabilitation Center, 263 rue du Caducée, 34090, Montpellier, France

    Charles Fattal

  3. LGP Lab. ENIT, 47 Avenue d’Azereix, 65000, Tarbes, France

    Mourad Benoussaad

Authors
  1. Mourad Benoussaad
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  2. Philippe Poignet
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  3. Mitsuhiro Hayashibe
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  4. Christine Azevedo-Coste
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  5. Charles Fattal
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  6. David Guiraud
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Correspondence to Mourad Benoussaad.

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Benoussaad, M., Poignet, P., Hayashibe, M. et al. Synthesis of optimal electrical stimulation patterns for functional motion restoration: applied to spinal cord-injured patients. Med Biol Eng Comput 53, 227–240 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1227-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-014-1227-x

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