Jonathan Wolpaw

Albany Stratton VA Medical Center · Department of Neurology

Operant conditioning of the spinal stretch reflex or its electrical analog, the H-reflex, induces plasticity in the brain and spinal cord that increases (up-conditioning) or decreases (down-conditioning) the reflex elicited by primary afferent input to the spinal motoneuron. In rats in which the sciatic nerve is transected and repaired, soleus (SOL...

Objective. Clinical assessments of individuals with Cognitive-Motor Dissociation (CMD) following brain injury are challenging and prone to errors. This prompts investigation of objective, movement-independent neurophysiological markers using electroencephalography (EEG) based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology. The current pilot study involv...

We are studying the mechanisms of H‐reflex operant conditioning, a simple form of learning. Modelling studies in the literature and our previous data suggested that changes in the axon initial segment (AIS) might contribute. To explore this, we used blinded quantitative histological and immunohistochemical methods to study in adult rats the impact...

Neurorehabilitation is now one of the most exciting areas in neuroscience. Recognition that the central nervous system (CNS) remains plastic through life, new understanding of skilled behaviors (skills), and novel methods for engaging and guiding beneficial plasticity combine to provide unprecedented opportunities for restoring skills impaired by C...

Weak transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is known to affect corticospinal excitability and enhance motor skill acquisition, whereas its effects on spinal reflexes in actively contracting muscles are yet to be established. Thus, in this study, we examined the acute effects of Active and Sham tDCS on the soleus H-reflex during standing. In...

Individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) frequently develop speech and communication problems in the course of their disease. Currently available augmentative and alternative communication technologies do not present a solution for many people with advanced ALS, because these devices depend on residual and reliable motor activity. Brain...

After a neurological injury, people develop abnormal patterns of neural activity that limit motor recovery. Traditional rehabilitation, which concentrates on practicing impaired skills, is seldom fully effective. New targeted neuroplasticity protocols interact with the central nervous system (CNS) to induce beneficial plasticity in key sites and th...

Over the past half‐century, the largely hardwired central nervous system (CNS) of 1970 has become the ubiquitously plastic CNS of today, in which change is the rule not the exception. This transformation complicates a central question in neuroscience: how are adaptive behaviours – behaviours that serve the needs of the individual – acquired and mai...

Over the past half-century, the largely hardwired central nervous system (CNS) of 1970 has become the ubiquitously plastic CNS of today, in which change is the rule not the exception. This transformation complicates a central question in neuroscience: how are adaptive behaviours-behaviours that serve the needs of the individual-acquired and maintai...

Objective. Present methods for assessing color vision require the person’s active participation. Here we describe a brain-computer interface-based method for assessing color vision that does not require the person’s participation. Approach. This method uses steady-state visual evoked potentials to identify metamers—two light sources that have diffe...

Evidence that neurohormones contribute to the contralateral effects of unilateral brain injury challenges a fundamental assumption of basic neuroscience and clinical neurology.

After neurological injury, people develop abnormal patterns of neural activity that limit motor recovery. Traditional rehabilitation, which concentrates on practicing impaired skills, is seldom fully effective. New targeted neuroplasticity (TNP) protocols interact with the CNS to induce beneficial plasticity in key sites and thereby enable wider be...

After neurological injury, people develop abnormal patterns of neural activity that limit motor recovery. Traditional rehabilitation, which concentrates on practicing impaired skills, is seldom fully effective. New targeted neuroplasticity (TNP) protocols interact with the CNS to induce beneficial plasticity in key sites and thereby enable wider be...

Operant conditioning of Hoffmann's reflex (H-reflex) is a non-invasive and targeted therapeutic intervention for patients with movement disorders following spinal cord injury. The reflex-conditioning protocol uses electromyography (EMG) to measure reflexes from specific muscles elicited using transcutaneous electrical stimulation. Despite recent ad...

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology can restore communication and control to people who are severely paralyzed. BCI technology might also be able to enhance rehabilitation of motor function. We have previously shown that pre-movement sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) amplitude affects reaction time and performance on a joystick-based cursor movement...

Key points In people or animals with incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI), changing a spinal reflex through an operant conditioning protocol can improve locomotion. All previous studies conditioned the reflex during steady‐state maintenance of a specific posture. By contrast, the present study down‐conditioned the reflex during the swing‐phase of lo...

Objective. Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology enables people to use direct measures of brain activity for communication and control. The National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies and Helen Hayes Hospital are studying long-term independent home use of P300-based BCIs by people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This BCI use takes...

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology is attracting increasing interest as a tool for enhancing recovery of motor function after stroke, yet the optimal way to apply this technology is unknown. Here, we studied the immediate and therapeutic effects of BCI-based training to control pre-movement sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) amplitude on robot-assist...

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology can restore communication and control to people who are severely paralyzed. BCI technology may also be able to enhance rehabilitation of motor function (Lancet Neurology 7:1032-43, 2008). Toward this end, we seek to find features of cortico-muscular coupling that individuals might learn to control through f...

People with motor deficits after neurological injuries often develop abnormal patterns of neural activity that can limit motor recovery. Here, we use a computational model of corticospinal cells eliciting finger movements to study: (1) the mechanisms and patterns of cortical reorganization after a stroke; and (2) how giving targeted feedback on und...

Objective. Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology is attracting increasing interest as a tool for enhancing recovery of motor function after stroke, yet the optimal way to apply this technology is unknown. Here, we studied the immediate and therapeutic effects of BCI-based training to control pre-movement sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) amplitude on r...

People can learn over training sessions to increase or decrease sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Activity-dependent brain plasticity is thought to guide spinal plasticity during motor skill learning; thus, SMR training may affect spinal reflexes and thereby influence motor control. To test this hypothesis, we investiga...

Neurological disorders, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis cause motor impairments that are a huge burden at the individual, family, and societal levels. Spinal reflex abnormalities contribute to these impairments. Spinal reflex measurements play important roles in characterizing and m...

Objective: To assess the reliability and usefulness of an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) for patients with advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who used it independently at home for up to 18 months. Methods: Of 42 patients consented, 39 (93%) met the study criteria, and 37 (88%) were assessed for use of the Wadsworth BCI. Nine...

Introduction: Robotic devices, including exoskeletons and brain-computer interface (BCI) technology are attracting increasing interest as tools for enhancing movement training after stroke [1]. To the extent that poor motor preparation limits motor function, using a BCI to train pre-movement sensorimotor rhythms (SMR) might improve the ensuing moto...

Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are real-time computer-based systems that translate brain signals into useful commands. To date most applications have been demonstrations of proof-of-principle; widespread use by people who could benefit from this technology requires further development. Improvements in current EEG recording technology are needed....

The belief that the spinal cord is hardwired is no longer tenable. Like the rest of the CNS, the spinal cord changes during growth and aging, when new motor behaviours are acquired, and in response to trauma and disease. This paper describes a new model of spinal cord function that reconciles its recently appreciated plasticity with its long recogn...

When new motor learning changes the spinal cord, old behaviors are not impaired; their key features are preserved by additional, compensatory, plasticity. To explore the mechanisms responsible for this compensatory plasticity, we transected the spinal dorsal ascending tract (DA) before or after female rats acquired a new behavior -- operantly condi...

The rat is a commonly used model for the study of lower urinary tract function before and after spinal cord injury. We have previously reported that in unanesthetized, freely-moving rats, although phasic external urethral sphincter (EUS) activity (bursting) is most common during micturition, productive voiding can occur in the absence of bursting,...

Objective. Emotion dysregulation is an important aspect of many psychiatric disorders. Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology could be a powerful new approach to facilitating therapeutic self-regulation of emotions. One possible BCI method would be to provide stimulus-specific feedback based on subject-specific electroencephalographic (EEG) resp...

BCI-based sensorimotor rhythm training can affect individuated finger movements D.J. McFarland1, S.L. Norman2, W.A. Sarnacki1, E.T. Wolbrecht3, D.J. Reinkensmeyer2, J.R. Wolpaw1 1 Wadsworth Center, Albany, NY, USA; 2University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; 3University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology can...

The inferior olive (IO) is essential for operant down-conditioning of the rat soleus H-reflex, a simple motor skill. To evaluate the role of the IO in long-term maintenance of this skill, the H-reflex was down-conditioned over 50 days, the IO was chemically ablated, and down-conditioning continued for up to 102 more days. H-reflex size just before...

We evaluated the role of the inferior olive (IO) in acquisition of the spinal cord plasticity that underlies H-reflex down-conditioning, a simple motor skill. The IO was chemically ablated before a 50-day exposure to an operant conditioning protocol that rewarded a smaller soleus H-reflex. In normal rats, down-conditioning succeeds (i.e., H-reflex...

http://castor.tugraz.at/doku/BCIMeeting2016/Proceedings_Meeting_2016.pdf DOI: 10.3217/978-3-85125-467-9

Objective. Brain–computer interface (BCI) technology might contribute to rehabilitation of motor function. This speculation is based on the premise that modifying the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity will modify behavior, a proposition for which there is limited empirical data. The present study asked whether learned modulation of pre-movemen...

In anesthetized rats, voiding is typically associated with phasic activation (bursting) of the external urethral sphincter (EUS). During spontaneous voiding in unanesthetized, unrestrained rats, EUS bursting is the most common form of EUS activity exhibited, but it is not necessary for productive voiding to occur. The aim of the present study was t...

An operant-conditioning protocol that bases reward on the electromyographic response produced by a specific CNS pathway can change that pathway. For example, in both animals and people, an operant-conditioning protocol can increase or decrease the spinal stretch reflex or its electrical analog, the H-reflex. Reflex change is associated with plastic...

Objective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) aimed at restoring communication to people with severe neuromuscular disabilities often use event-related potentials (ERPs) in scalp-recorded EEG activity. Up to the present, most research and development in this area has been done in the laboratory with young healthy control subjects. In order to facili...

Sensorimotor cortex exerts both short-term and long-term control over the spinal reflex pathways that serve motor behaviors. Better understanding of this control could offer new possibilities for restoring function after CNS trauma or disease. We examined the impact of ongoing sensorimotor cortex (SMC) activity on the largely monosynaptic pathway o...

Operant conditioning of a spinal cord reflex can improve locomotion in rats and humans with incomplete spinal cord injury. This study examined the persistence of its beneficial effects. In rats in which a right lateral column contusion injury had produced asymmetrical locomotion, up-conditioning of the right soleus H-reflex eliminated the asymmetry...

The external urethral sphincter muscle (EUS) plays an important role in urinary function and often contributes to urinary dysfunction. EUS study would benefit from methodology for longitudinal recording of electromyographic activity (EMG) in unanesthetized animals, but this muscle is a poor substrate for chronic intramuscular electrodes, and thus t...

In normal animals, operant conditioning of the spinal stretch reflex or the H-reflex has lesser effects on synergist muscle reflexes. In rats and people with incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI), soleus H-reflex operant conditioning can improve locomotion. We studied in normal humans the impact of soleus H-reflex down-conditioning on medial (MG) and...

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), also known as brain–machine interfaces (BMIs), translate brain activity into new outputs that replace, restore, enhance, supplement or improve natural brain outputs. BCI research and development has grown rapidly for the past two decades. It is beginning to provide useful communication and control capacities to peo...

Objective. Previous work has shown that it is possible to build an EEG-based binary brain–computer interface system (BCI) driven purely by shifts of attention to auditory stimuli. However, previous studies used abrupt, abstract stimuli that are often perceived as harsh and unpleasant, and whose lack of inherent meaning may make the interface unintu...

In two freestanding volumes, the Textbook of Neural Repair and Rehabilitation provides comprehensive coverage of the science and practice of neurological rehabilitation. Revised throughout, bringing the book fully up to date, this volume, Neural Repair and Plasticity, covers the basic sciences relevant to recovery of function following injury to th...

In two freestanding volumes, the Textbook of Neural Repair and Rehabilitation provides comprehensive coverage of the science and practice of neurological rehabilitation. Revised throughout, bringing the book fully up to date, this volume, Neural Repair and Plasticity, covers the basic sciences relevant to recovery of function following injury to th...

New appreciation of the adaptive capabilities of the nervous system, recent recognition that most spinal cord injuries are incomplete, and progress in enabling regeneration are generating growing interest in novel rehabilitation therapies. Here we review the 35-year evolution of one promising new approach, operant conditioning of spinal reflexes. T...

People with incomplete spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently suffer motor disabilities due to spasticity and poor muscle control, even after conventional therapy. Abnormal spinal reflex activity often contributes to these problems. Operant conditioning of spinal reflexes, which can target plasticity to specific reflex pathways, can enhance recovery....

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) might restore communication to people severely disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or other disorders. We sought to: 1) define a protocol for determining whether a person with ALS can use a visual P300-based BCI; 2) determine what proportion of this population can use the BCI; and 3) identify factors aff...

Operant conditioning protocols can gradually change spinal reflexes, which are the simplest behaviors. This article summarizes the evidence supporting two propositions: that these protocols provide excellent models for defining the substrates of learning; and that they can induce and guide plasticity to help restore skills such as locomotion that h...

When new motor learning changes neurons and synapses in the spinal cord, it may affect previously learned behaviors that depend on the same spinal neurons and synapses. To explore these effects, we used operant conditioning to strengthen or weaken the right soleus H-reflex pathway in rats in which a right spinal cord contusion had impaired locomoti...

A method and system are provided for analyzing electromagnetic brain signals such as EEG and ECoG signals in a subject in real time and which avoids the need for time-intensive retrospective analysis of brain activity in the subject. This can be applied to all complex systems with multiple fluctuating signals to identify and predict significant eve...

Spinal reflex behaviors can be changed through operant conditioning, in which modification of a behavior is brought about by the consequence of that behavior. Spinal reflex conditioning can be used to change a spinal reflex pathway so as to ameliorate movement disabilities due to central nervous system (CNS) damage. This chapter demonstrates that o...

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are using BCI 24/7, a P300-based brain-computer interface (BCI) system, independently, in their homes, for work and play. At the same time speed and reliability remain important issues for these independent users. This study seeks to correlate the EEG in six frequency bands (0-30 Hz), collected from e...

Introduction: Operant conditioning can gradually change the human soleus H-reflex. The protocol conditions the reflex near M-wave threshold. In this study we examine its impact on the reflexes at other stimulus strengths. Methods: H-reflex recruitment curves were obtained before and after a 24-session exposure to an up-conditioning (HRup) or a d...

Operant conditioning protocols can modify the activity of specific spinal cord pathways and can thereby affect behaviors that use these pathways. To explore the therapeutic application of these protocols, we studied the impact of down-conditioning the soleus H-reflex in people with impaired locomotion caused by chronic incomplete spinal cord injury...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are systems that give their users communication and control capabilities that do not depend on muscles. The user's intentions are determined from activity recorded by electrodes on the scalp, on the cortical surface, or within the brain. BCIs can enable people who are paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)...

Brain–computer interfaces are a new technology that could help to restore useful function to people severely disabled by a wide variety of devastating neuromuscular disorders and to enhance functions in healthy individuals. The first demonstrations of brain–computer interface (BCI) technology occurred in the 1960s when Grey Walter used the scalp-re...

Objective. Sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) are 8–30 Hz oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded from the scalp over sensorimotor cortex that change with movement and/or movement imagery. Many brain–computer interface (BCI) studies have shown that people can learn to control SMR amplitudes and can use that control to move cursors and othe...

The cortex gradually modifies the spinal cord during development, throughout later life, and in response to trauma or disease. The mechanisms of this essential function are not well understood. In this study, weak electrical stimulation of rat sensorimotor cortex increased the soleus H-reflex, increased the numbers and sizes of GABAergic spinal int...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) acquire brain signals, analyze them, and translate them into commands that are relayed to output devices that carry out desired actions. BCIs do not use normal neuromuscular output pathways. The main goal of BCI is to replace or restore useful function to people disabled by neuromuscular disorders such as amyotrophi...

ARTICLE Sir, The recent review article ‘Harnessing neuroplasticity for clinical applications’ (Cramer et al. , 2011) is in many respects an impressively sophisticated summary of current knowledge of CNS plasticity and its potential translation to important new therapeutic applications. However, this otherwise excellent article has one very major o...

The H-reflex, the electrical analog of the spinal stretch reflex (SSR) is mediated largely by a wholly spinal, primarily two-neuron pathway. Because this pathway is influenced by descending pathways from the brain, these spinal reflexes can be operantly conditioned. Motivated by a paradigm in which reward depends on reflex size, monkeys, humans, ra...

The purpose of this study was to identify electroencephalography (EEG) features that correlate with P300-based brain–computer interface (P300 BCI) performance in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Twenty people with ALS used a P300 BCI spelling application in copy-spelling mode. Three types of EEG features were found to be good predic...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have a promising future, with researchers in laboratories all over the world using many different brain signals, recording methods, and signal processing approaches to realize increasingly capable systems. These BCI systems can control a variety of external devices, from cursors and avatars on computer screens, to t...

This chapter addresses the following questions: Can the brain-computer interface (BCI) design be implemented in a form suitable for long-term independent use? Who are the people who need the BCI system, and can they use it? Can their home environments support their use of the BCI, and do they actually use it? Does the BCI improve their lives? It co...

This chapter begins by briefly addressing the question: What is a braincomputer interface (BCI)? It then covers the provenance of the term BCI and its present definition, synonymous or subsidiary terms, and related neurotechnology. The remainder of the chapter introduces six themes that are important for understanding BCI research and development:...

This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the future of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. It then discusses the problems that must be solved in three crucial areas in order to achieve truly practical and effective BCIs. These areas are: signal acquisition hardware, validation and dissemination, and reliability. With improved signal-ac...

In the last fifteen years, a recognizable surge in the field of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) research and development has emerged. This emergence has sprung from a variety of factors. For one, inexpensive computer hardware and software is now available and can support the complex high-speed analyses of brain activity that is essential is BCI. Ano...

Measures that quantify the relationship between two or more brain signals are drawing attention as neuroscientists explore the mechanisms of large-scale integration that enable coherent behavior and cognition. Traditional Fourier-based measures of coherence have been used to quantify frequency-dependent relationships between two signals. More recen...

The soleus H-reflex is dynamically modulated during walking. However, modulation of the gastrocnemii H-reflexes has not been studied systematically. The medial and lateral gastrocnemii (MG and LG) and soleus H-reflexes were measured during standing and walking in humans. Maximum H-reflex amplitude was significantly smaller in MG (mean 1.1 mV) or LG...

H-reflex conditioning is a model for studying the plasticity associated with a new motor skill. We are exploring its effects on other reflexes and on locomotion. Rats were implanted with EMG electrodes in both solei (SOL(R) and SOL(L)) and right quadriceps (QD(R)), and stimulating cuffs on both posterior tibial (PT) nerves and right posterior femor...

People with or without motor disabilities can learn to control sensorimotor rhythms (SMRs) recorded from the scalp to move a computer cursor in one or more dimensions or can use the P300 event-related potential as a control signal to make discrete selections. Data collected from individuals using an SMR-based or P300-based BCI were evaluated offlin...

The brain's electrical signals enable people without muscle control to physically interact with the world.