Peripheral neural interfaces: Skeletal muscles are hyper-reinnervated according to the axonal capacity of the surgically rewired nerves. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Advances in robotics have outpaced the capabilities of man-machine interfaces to decipher and transfer neural information to and from prosthetic devices. We emulated clinical scenarios where high- (facial) or low-neural capacity (ulnar) donor nerves were surgically rewired to the sternomastoid muscle, which is controlled by a very small number of motor axons. Using retrograde tracing and electrophysiological assessments, we observed a nearly 15-fold functional hyper-reinnervation of the muscle after high-capacity nerve transfer, demonstrating its capability of generating a multifold of neuromuscular junctions. Moreover, the surgically redirected axons influenced the muscle's physiological characteristics, by altering the expression of myosin heavy-chain types in alignment with the donor nerve. These findings highlight the remarkable capacity of skeletal muscles to act as biological amplifiers of neural information from the spinal cord for governing bionic prostheses, with the potential of expressing high-dimensional neural function for high-information transfer interfaces.

publication date

  • February 28, 2024

Research

keywords

  • Motor Neurons
  • Nerve Regeneration

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC10901366

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1126/sciadv.adj3872

PubMed ID

  • 38416828

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 10

issue

  • 9