This study assessed the feasibility to restore finger-specific sensory feedback in transradial amputees with electrical stimulation of evoked tactile sensation (ETS). Here we investigated primary somatosensory cortical (SI) responses of ETS using Magnetoencephalography. SI activations revealed a causal correlation with peripheral stimulation of projected finger regions on the stump skin. Peak latency was accountable to neural transmission from periphery to SI. Peak intensity of SI response was proportional to the strength of peripheral stimulation, manifesting a direct neural pathway from skin receptors to SI neurons. Active regions in SI at the amputated side were consistent to the finger/hand map of homunculus, forming a mirror imaging to that of the contralateral hand. With sensory feedback, amputees can recognize a pressure at prosthetic fingers as that at the homonymous lost fingers. Results confirmed that the direct neural pathway from periphery to SI allows communication of finger-specific sensory information to these amputees.

Sensory feedback provides critical interactive information for the effective use of hand prostheses. Non-invasive neural interfaces allow convenient access to the sensory system, but they communicate a limited amount of sensory information. This study examined a novel approach that leverages a direct and natural sensory afferent pathway, and enables an evoked tactile sensation (ETS) of multiple digits in the projected finger map (PFM) of participants with forearm amputation non-invasively. A bidirectional prosthetic interface was constructed by integrating the non-invasive ETS-based feedback system into a commercial prosthetic hand. The pressure information of five fingers was encoded linearly by the pulse width modulation range of the buzz sensation. We showed that simultaneous perception of multiple digits allowed participants with forearm amputation to identify object length and compliance by using information about contact patterns and force intensity. The ETS enhanced the grasp-and-transport performance of participants with and without prior experience of prosthetic use. The functional test of transport-and-identification further revealed improved execution in classifying object size and compliance using ETS-based feedback. Results demonstrated that the ETS is capable of communicating somatotopically compatible information to participants efficiently, and improves sensory discrimination and closed-loop prosthetic control. This non-invasive sensory interface may establish a viable way to restore sensory ability for prosthetic users who experience the phenomenon of PFM.

Object: Based on the comparisons of the somatosensory event-related potentials (ERPs), the object of this study is to investigate the underlying cognition mechanism of somatotopy and the homology of tactile sensation between the projected fingers in the residual limb and the natural fingers in the intact limb. Methods: One amputee subject and three able-bodied subjects were recruited. The forearm amputee had a clear projected finger mapping (PFM) that could evoke the tactile sensation of the entire five missing fingers. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) was used to evoke the sensation pattern of touch. Stimulation locations were divided into three groups: the locations of Group PA (projected-finger of amputee-subject) were located on the entire five projected fingers for the amputee subject, the locations of Group NA (natural-finger of amputee-subject) were located on the entire five natural fingers for the amputee subject, and the locations of Group NH (natural-finger of healthy-subject) were located on the bilateral natural index fingers for the able-bodied subjects. The somatosensory ERPs evoked by the stimulations were recorded. We measured the latency and amplitude of the ERP components and made statistical analyses for them. Main results: Since the ERP components of the early-stage are similar for both the stimulation in the projected fingers and the natural fingers, it can infer that the delivery pathway of the projected finger was similar to that of the natural finger. The second finding of the study is that, as the processing of sensory sensation in the cortex of the three groups is similar, it can also infer that the somatosensory evoked by the external stimuli are also similar. Conclusion: The present findings suggest that the somatotopy and the homology of tactile sensation between the projected fingers in the residual limb and the natural fingers in the intact limb have evident uniformity. We infer that the median nerve and the ulnar nerve of the peripheral nerve may divaricate new pathways, and these pathways would have been linked to the PFM.

The calibration of camera systems employing zoom lenses raises several challenges, as changes in lens control settings introduce various imaging conditions, especially different degrees of defocus. This article presents a Fourier-based defocus calibration method to calibrate a camera attached with an electronically focus-tunable lens (ETL). Different from the traditional method which requires changing the scale of the calibration object for sharp images, the proposed method is more concerned with the frequency characteristics of the captured images than the gray distributions. According to the invariance of the fundamental frequencies before and after defocusing the images, coordinates of feature points can be extracted accurately, even in different degrees of defocus. Therefore, one normal size target can also be qualified for zoom system calibration. Then polynomial approximation is used to account for the variation of the intrinsic and distortion parameters across the zoom range. Extensive simulations and experiments were implemented to demonstrate the proposed idea's robustness against defocus, flexibility, and accuracy.

The ability of a novel biorealistic hand prosthesis for grasp force control reveals improved neural compatibility between the human-prosthetic interaction. The primary purpose here was to validate a virtual training platform for amputee subjects and evaluate the respective roles of visual and tactile information in fundamental force control tasks. We developed a digital twin of tendon-driven prosthetic hand in the MuJoCo environment. Biorealistic controllers emulated a pair of antagonistic muscles controlling the index finger of the virtual hand by surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals from amputees’ residual forearm muscles. Grasp force information was transmitted to amputees through evoked tactile sensation (ETS) feedback. Six forearm amputees participated in force tracking and holding tasks under different feedback conditions or using their intact hands. Test results showed that visual feedback played a predominant role than ETS feedback in force tracking and holding tasks. However, in the absence of visual feedback during the force holding task, ETS feedback significantly enhanced motor performance compared to feedforward control alone. Thus, ETS feedback still supplied reliable sensory information to facilitate amputee’s ability of stable grasp force control. The effects of tactile and visual feedback on force control were subject-specific when both types of feedback were provided simultaneously. Amputees were able to integrate visual and tactile information to the biorealistic controllers and achieve a good sensorimotor performance in grasp force regulation. The virtual platform may provide a training paradigm for amputees to adapt the biorealistic hand controller and ETS feedback optimally.