Nerve cuff stimulation and the effect of fascicular organization for hand grasp in nonhuman primates

The overall goal of this work is to introduce nerve cuff electrodes into upper extremity hand grasp systems. The first challenge is to develop a nerve cuff electrode that can selectively activate multiple hand functions from common upper extremity peripheral nerves. The flat interface nerve electrode (FINE) has shown selective stimulation capability in animal trials. The FINE wraps around the nerve and gently reshapes the nerve and aligns the fascicles within the nerve. Our hypothesis is that the FINE can selectively stimulate multi-fascicular nerves in the human upper extremity resulting in selective hand function. To assess the ability of the FINE to produce control of a hand with many degrees of freedom, we have tested the FINE in nonhuman primates. Fascicular organization and fascicle count are important factors to consider when determining electrode placement. The proximal nerve is an attractive electrode location to access both extrinsic and intrinsic muscles in the upper extremity. A challenge with the nonhuman primate model is that the nonhuman primate median and ulnar nerves both have uni-fascicular regions proximally. The human proximal median and ulnar nerves have an encouraging anatomy of multi-fasciculated nerves with redundant fascicles that may result in more selective hand function than is capable in the nonhuman primate.