Date of Award
5-14-2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Cuff-style peripheral nerve interfaces (PNIs) communicate with the central nervous system and offer interesting advantages when compared with other neural interfaces, including brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and non-cuff PNI designs. PNI development must consider design factors such as volume of neural activity being driven or recorded, specificity of stimulus activation, and longevity of the device. This dissertation provides an analytical framework for PNI experiments, showcasing two experiments where PNIs were implanted in highly trained macaque monkeys. We applied foundational psychophysical procedures and other behavioral paradigms to examine the relationship between the input electrical stimulus delivered by a cuff electrode and the resulting behavioral response during a classical conditioning task. We studied somatosensory encoding in three monkeys in a longitudinal study over several months. Additionally, we studied vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in a single monkey in a study to examine the effects of VNS stimulation during trace extinction, since the facilitation of fear extinction might improve outcomes for VNS treatment given to patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To support data analysis for these experiments, I developed the open-source Python package PsychoAnalyze, which powers an interactive dashboard for navigating psychophysical datasets. As researchers integrate modern data engineering approaches, tools, and workflows with our existing protocols and models, there is significant opportunity for researchers to build increasingly sophisticated computational models that improve VNS outcomes and our understanding of the peripheral nervous system.
Language
English (en)
Chair
Daniel Moran