CONTROL OF ELECTRICAL STIMULATION ASSISTED CYCLING FOR REHABILITATION OF STROKE SUBJECTS USING EMG AND NIRS

摘要

The beneficial effects of cycling exercise via electricalrnstimulation (ES) have been demonstrated to improvernhuman motion of populations with muscle disabilities,rnsuch as post-stroke, and incomplete spinal cord injuryrn(SCI). During ES-assisted cycling, muscle contraction isrngenerated from two different excitation sources, volitionalrncontraction and external ES, which is referred as hybridrnmuscle activation. However, research of control strategiesrnand assessment from motor recovery and brainrnreorganization via ES-assisted cycling has been seldomrnstudied using traditional neuroimaging techniques due tornthe motion constraints. In this study, we investigated therncontrol of ES-assisted cycling and investigated regionalrncortical activities of bilateral sensorimotor corticesrn(SMC), supplementary motor areas (SMA) and premotorrncortices (PMC) measured by functional near infraredrnspectroscopy (fNIRS) under varied forms of ES-inducedrncycling conditions. Software and hardwarernimplementation for extracting volitional and ES-inducedrnelectromyographic (EMG) signals during cycling werernused to design control strategies for assessing thernvoluntary and ES-induced contraction. The brain-basedrnrehabilitation scheme using NIRS should provide generalrnguideline for design control strategies and patient-tailoredrntherapeutic scheme for stroke patients.