Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) create novel sensorimotor pathways for action. Much as the sensorimotor apparatus shapes natural motor control, the BMI pathway characteristics may also influence neuroprosthetic control. Here, we explore the influence of control and feedback rates, where control rate indicates how often motor commands are sent from the brain to the prosthetic, and feedback rate indicates how often visual feedback of the prosthetic is provided to the subject. We developed a new BMI that allows arbitrarily fast control and feedback rates, and used it to dissociate the effects of each rate in two monkeys. Increasing the control rate significantly improved control even when feedback rate was unchanged. Increasing the feedback rate further facilitated control. We also show that our high-rate BMI significantly outperformed state-of-the-art methods due to higher control and feedback rates, combined with a different point process mathematical encoding model. Our BMI paradigm can dissect the contribution of different elements in the sensorimotor pathway, providing a unique tool for studying neuroprosthetic control mechanisms.
Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are dynamical systems whose properties ultimately influence performance. For instance, a 2-D BMI in which cursor position is controlled using a Kalman filter will, by default, create an attractor point that "pulls" the cursor to particular points in the workspace. If created unintentionally, such effects may not be beneficial for BMI performance. However, there have been few empirical studies exploring how various dynamical effects of closed-loop BMIs ultimately influence performance. In this work, we utilize experimental data from two macaque monkeys operating a closed-loop BMI to reach to 2-D targets and show that certain dynamical properties correlate with performance loss. We also show that other dynamical properties represent tradeoffs between naturally competing objectives, such as speed versus accuracy. These findings highlight the importance of fine-tuning the dynamical properties of closed-loop BMIs to optimize task-specific performance.
Closed-loop decoder adaptation (CLDA) is an emerging paradigm for both improving and maintaining online performance in brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). The time required for initial decoder training and any subsequent decoder recalibrations could be potentially reduced by performing continuous adaptation, in which decoder parameters are updated at every time step during these procedures, rather than waiting to update the decoder at periodic intervals in a more batch-based process. Here, we present recursive maximum likelihood (RML), a CLDA algorithm that performs continuous adaptation of a Kalman filter decoder's parameters. We demonstrate that RML possesses a variety of useful properties and practical algorithmic advantages. First, we show how RML leverages the accuracy of updates based on a batch of data while still adapting parameters on every time step. Second, we illustrate how the RML algorithm is parameterized by a single, intuitive half-life parameter that can be used to adjust the rate of adaptation in real time. Third, we show how even when the number of neural features is very large, RML's memory-efficient recursive update rules can be reformulated to also be computationally fast so that continuous adaptation is still feasible. To test the algorithm in closed-loop experiments, we trained three macaque monkeys to perform a center-out reaching task by using either spiking activity or local field potentials to control a 2D computer cursor. RML achieved higher levels of performance more rapidly in comparison to a previous CLDA algorithm that adapts parameters on a more intermediate timescale. Overall, our results indicate that RML is an effective CLDA algorithm for achieving rapid performance acquisition using continuous adaptation.
Brain-machine interface (BMI) performance has been improved using Kalman filters (KF) combined with closed-loop decoder adaptation (CLDA). CLDA fits the decoder parameters during closed-loop BMI operation based on the neural activity and inferred user velocity intention. These advances have resulted in the recent ReFIT-KF and SmoothBatch-KF decoders. Here we demonstrate high-performance and robust BMI control using a novel closed-loop BMI architecture termed adaptive optimal feedback-controlled (OFC) point process filter (PPF). Adaptive OFC-PPF allows subjects to issue neural commands and receive feedback with every spike event and hence at a faster rate than the KF. Moreover, it adapts the decoder parameters with every spike event in contrast to current CLDA techniques that do so on the time-scale of minutes. Finally, unlike current methods that rotate the decoded velocity vector, adaptive OFC-PPF constructs an infinite-horizon OFC model of the brain to infer velocity intention during adaptation. Preliminary data collected in a monkey suggests that adaptive OFC-PPF improves BMI control. OFC-PPF outperformed SmoothBatch-KF in a self-paced center-out movement task with 8 targets. This improvement was due to both the PPF's increased rate of control and feedback compared with the KF, and to the OFC model suggesting that the OFC better approximates the user's strategy. Also, the spike-by-spike adaptation resulted in faster performance convergence compared to current techniques. Thus adaptive OFC-PPF enabled proficient BMI control in this monkey.
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