Toward a whole-body neuroprosthetic

Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) hold promise for the restoration of body mobility in patients suffering from devastating motor deficits caused by brain injury, neurological diseases, and limb loss. Considerable progress has been achieved in BMIs that enact arm movements, and initial work has been done on BMIs for lower limb and trunk control. These developments put Duke University Center for Neuroengineering in the position to develop the first BMI for whole-body control. This whole-body BMI will incorporate very large-scale brain recordings, advanced decoding algorithms, artificial sensory feedback based on electrical stimulation of somatosensory areas, virtual environment representations, and a whole-body exoskeleton. This system will be first tested in nonhuman primates and then transferred to clinical trials in humans.