Near enough to grasp

Alessandro Del Vecchio develops neuro-orthoses aimed at allowing paralyzed people to grasp objects. Sensors are used to detect the person’s intention for movement and act on it using a wearable exoskeleton.

Alessandro Del Vecchio remembers well the day he was meant to travel to Rome for the training camp of the Italian elite school for fighter pilots. He came down with a severe infection in his left ear and had to cancel the examination – and abandon his dream.

However, the son of a teacher and a businessman who was born in Eboli in the province of Salerno in the south of Italy did not let this setback discourage him. Now a father of two small children himself, he has always been motivated to “make the world a better place than when I found it.” Del Vecchio studied Biomechanics and Physiology in Parma, and completed a Master’s degree in both subjects. After completing his doctoral thesis and several years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London, he moved to Erlangen.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m glad that I didn’t become a Top Gun pilot. I have the best job in the world and I am happy to go to work every day. Maybe my ear infection actually saved my career,” says the head of the Neuromuscular Physiology and Neural Interfacing Laboratory (N-squared Lab) at FAU.

Sensors recognize intended movements

Today, Del Vecchio is in charge of a working group with twelve members that focuses on topics including fundamental research into neuroscience. The team is interested in how the brain controls muscles, for example in rapid movements involving joints or for grasping and manipulating objects. According to the 36 year old, his translational approach is based on the fact that “we want to understand the underlying physiological mechanisms, in order for us to be able to transfer our findings to neurotechnological applications such as human-machine interfaces and protheses.”

Specifically, the neuroscientist wants to help people who have suffered a spinal injury or who are no longer able to move their hand after suffering from a stroke. “In our experiments, we noticed that there is still some electrical activity in their muscles. That is fantastic, as it means we can circumvent the brain but can still integrate all the calculations of the spinal cord.

In the project NeurOne, Del Vecchio’s team is working to develop what they call a neuro-orthosis. This involves an electrical sensor that is attached to muscles and can “read” the person’s intended movements. Using a 3D printer, the researchers produced extremely thin sensors that register the weak activity of the still functioning motor nerve cell bundles.

A brain-computer interface supported by AI decodes the received signals to determine the person’s intended movement. Del Vecchio explains the innovative invention developed in his laboratory as follows: “It is the combination of flexible sensors, advanced signal processing and AI algorithms that allow an exact interpretation of muscle activity and intuitive control of the neuro-orthosis.”

“I hope that in the next five to ten years all people with paralyzed hands will be able to grasp everyday objects again.”

Prof. Dr. Alessandro Del Vecchio

Glove helps with grasping

In its project GraspAgain, the research group has created a prototype to show what a neuro-orthosis may look like. It is a wearable exoskeleton shaped like a glove. The fingers and the thumb of the hand should move forcibly and independently of each other. “We have just demonstrated this in our latest study. Eight participants whose hands were completely paralyzed were able to open and close their hands using their own nerve impulses,” Del Vecchio reports.

The researchers hope that the neuro-orthosis will allow those affected to carry out more than 90 percent of their everyday tasks independently. “We have already made great progress in neurorehabilitation. And I hope that in the next five to ten years all people with paralyzed hands will be able to grasp everyday objects again,” explains Del Vecchio.

The advantage of this innovation: The electrodes and circuit boards are extremely thin and can be printed on conventional textiles or integrated into clothing. Nevertheless, the researcher still believes that there is need for research and development in the area of fine motor skills for moving individual fingers of a paralyzed hand. Above all, better hardware and software is required in order to process the weak electrical nerve signals. “However, those are engineering problems we can find a solution to. I believe in the Latin motto ‘sic parvis magna’: We can reach our goals if we keep solving small problems. In this way, great things are achieved from small beginnings.”

A comparison of Neuralink and neuro-orthoses

The technology used by Neuralink, co-founded in 2016 by Elon Musk, is based on implanting microelectrodes into the brain that record and stimulate neural activity. The system includes a chip that communicates wirelessly with external devices. The method focuses on direct brain-computer communication. In the short term, in order to treat brain diseases, in the long term to boost people’s mental abilities. It requires invasive surgery that has the potential for severe risks, including infections, immune reactions by the body and unknown long-term consequences. There are also ethical concerns relating to brain manipulation and data protection. That apart, it is difficult to predict the entire three dimensional dynamics of the human hand in natural movements.

Spinal interfaces, on the other hand, integrate all calculations from the brain and the neural circuits in the spinal cord. The activity of the spinal motor neurons that control the muscles can be translated directly into the three dimensional movements of the hand. Neuro-orthoses aim to reinstate patients’ ability to move by using external sensors on the skin and implanted electromyographic sensors (fine needle electrodes) in the muscle. This minimally invasive method only entails a low risk, as it only engages muscles and amplifies neural signals. One possible development in future would be a chip that is implanted directly into the muscle and interprets what the paralyzed person would like to do.

 

Author: Eve Tsakiridou

This article is part of the FAU magazine

Innovation, diversity and passion: Those are the three guiding principles of our FAU, as stated in our mission statement. At FAU, we live these guiding principles every day in all that we do – in research, in teaching and when it comes to sharing the knowledge created at our university with society.

This, the second issue of our FAU magazine, underlines all of the above: It shows researchers who tirelessly keep pushing the boundaries of what has been believed to be possible. It introduces students who work together to achieve outstanding results for their FAU, talks about teaching staff who pass on their knowledge with infectious enthusiasm and creativity. And it reports back on members of staff with foresight and a talent for getting to the crux of the matter who are dedicated to improving the (research) infrastructure at FAU as well as people in key positions who are there for their university and are committed to its research location.