The paralysis of the muscles controlling the hand dramatically limits the quality of life of individuals living with spinal cord injury (SCI). Here, with a non-invasive neural interface, we demonstrate that eight motor complete SCI individuals (C5-C6) are still able to task-modulate in real-time the activity of populations of spinal motor neurons with residual neural pathways. In all SCI participants tested, we identified groups of motor units under voluntary control that encoded various hand movements. The motor unit discharges were mapped into more than 10 degrees of freedom, ranging from grasping to individual hand-digit flexion and extension. We then mapped the neural dynamics into a real-time controlled virtual hand. The SCI participants were able to match the cue hand posture by proportionally controlling four degrees of freedom (opening and closing the hand and index flexion/extension). These results demonstrate that wearable muscle sensors provide access to spared motor neurons that are fully under voluntary control in complete cervical SCI individuals. This non-invasive neural interface allows the investigation of motor neuron changes after the injury and has the potential to promote movement restoration when integrated with assistive devices.

中文翻译：

---

直接脊髓-计算机接口可以控制脊髓损伤时瘫痪的手

控制手部的肌肉瘫痪极大地限制了脊髓损伤 (SCI) 患者的生活质量。在这里，通过非侵入性神经接口，我们证明八个运动完整 SCI 个体 (C5-C6) 仍然能够实时调节具有残余神经通路的脊髓运动神经元群的活动。在所有测试的 SCI 参与者中，我们识别出了在自愿控制下编码各种手部动作的运动单位组。运动单元的放电被映射到超过 10 个自由度，范围从抓握到个人手指的弯曲和伸展。然后我们将神经动力学映射到实时控制的虚拟手上。 SCI 参与者能够通过按比例控制四个自由度（打开和闭合手以及索引屈曲/伸展）来匹配提示手部姿势。这些结果表明，可穿戴肌肉传感器可以访问未受损伤的运动神经元，这些运动神经元在完全颈椎 SCI 个体中完全处于自愿控制之下。这种非侵入性神经接口可以研究受伤后运动神经元的变化，并且与辅助设备集成时有可能促进运动恢复。