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2008 Research Fellow Rollin Hu, MD Massachusetts General Hospital Development of a Cerebral-Spinal Motor Neural Prosthesis Our study proposes to systematically explore the feasibility of developing a cerebral-spinal neural prosthesis for restoring volitional limb control in a paraplegic primate model. Primates will be trained to perform a motor directional task, and intended movements will be predicted using linear and non-linear models based on neuronal activity recorded from the motor subterritory of the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Based on predictions from these models, microstimulus pulses will be delivered to the ventral spinal cord to produce movement. A closed-loop training module will be used to examine shifts in neuronal ensemble activity as the primates learn to correlate intended and actual actuator output during visual feedback.