Flexible MEMS Artificial Nerve for Rehabilitation of Facial Paralysis

摘要

In this paper, we propose the flexible MEMS artificial nerve for rehabilitation of facial paralysis. Patient with facial paralysis is usually shown as one-sided paralysis and the other side is normal. The principle of the artificial facial nerve is to sample electromyography (EMG) from normal side by recording microelectrodes as controlling signal, and then to stimulate the paralysis side by stimulating microelectrodes. So the paralysis muscle can contract following with the normal side. The flexible microelectrodes were fabricated by MEMS process, and the whole system including preamplifier, A/D transfer, MCU and microstimulator was established. Finally, the animal model was used to verify the function of rehabilitation of orbicularis oculi muscle (OOM) paralysis using the flexible MEMS artificial nerve.