Investigator: Kunai Mankodiya, University of Rhode Island

Scientific Theme: Neuroscience

Abstract: The proposal aims at establishing an innovative framework to integrate a wearable full-body motion capture suit with a portable neuroimaging based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The unified infrastructure will quantify cortico-muscular coherence (CMC) in people with movement disorders. Cortico-muscular coherence (CMC) also known as brain-muscle synchrony that refers to functional coupling between motor (movement) behaviors and cortical activations. For example, the motor disability observed in Parkinson’s disease has been associated with alterations in brain activities and CMC. Understanding CMC requires conducting neuroimaging of PD patients simultaneously with muscular/kinematic measurements of
the limbs. Despite significant advancements such as neuroimaging techniques––such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, these technologies are not sophisticated enough to investigate CMC especially in PD population. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a portable Neuroimaging technique and can be used in cortical mapping studies when PD patients are in their natural mobile state, performing various fine-to-gross limb movements. Furthermore, by adding full-body motion sensors (consisting of geometric sensors––accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer) to fNIRS neuroimaging, it becomes possible to perform in-depth analysis of CMC in the PD population and to explore functional connectivity between the brain and motor symptoms. The proposed research is categorized into the
following specific aims:
Aim 1: Design a unified system for CMC studies.
Aim 2: Quantify the correlation between movements and cortical activations through preliminary trials on healthy adult humans (n=8). The proposed infrastructure can provide new perspectives and give rise to new paradigms for the CMC research of PD.

Human Health Relevance: This exploratory research combining development and validation of the device for PD is relevant to public health for two reasons. First, they may provide a proof-of-concept evidence for the existence of disturbance in brain-muscle synchrony in individuals with PD. Secondly, they may demonstrate that quantification of cortico-muscular coherence is a useful measure of PD progression.