The core mission of National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is twofold. First, NINDS seeks fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system. Second, NINDS aims to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological diseases. In support of its mission, NINDS performs and funds basic, translational, and clinical neuroscience research on more than 600 neurological diseases, including genetic diseases (e.g. Huntington’s disease; muscular dystrophy), developmental disorders (e.g. cerebral palsy), neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Parkinson’s disease; Alzheimer’s disease; multiple sclerosis), metabolic diseases (e.g. Gaucher’s disease), cerebrovascular diseases (e.g. stroke; vascular dementia), trauma (e.g. spinal cord and head injury), convulsive disorders (e.g. epilepsy), infectious diseases (e.g. AIDS dementia) and brain tumors. Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) offer unique, powerful advantages to both components of the NINDS mission. In support of the first component, marmosets are particularly well suited for neuroanatomical and functional brain studies, as their brains retain the typical anatomical and functional organization of the primate brain. A major advantage is that the marmoset is a lissencephalic primate, which greatly facilitates the mapping of functional brain areas by neuroimaging techniques, such as fMRI and optical imaging, as well as by electrophysiology, with high spatial resolution. In support of the second component, marmosets are excellent models of neurological disorders. Unlike rodents, marmosets are outbred and every individual is genetically different. Further, the marmoset brain has a gray-to-white matter ratio comparable to humans, which strongly facilitates modeling diseases such as multiple sclerosis and small vessel disease. The species also exhibits the breadth of cognitive sophistication that distinguishes primates from other taxonomic groups. Finally, geneedited marmosets can be generated with an intergeneration time and establishment of transgenic lines 2-3 times faster than other primate species, which makes marmosets be the ideal primate species for the development of genetically engineered lines. For all of the above reasons, marmosets are poised to be a central player to advance the core mission of the NINDS.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Resistive flex sensors can be used to measure bending or flexing with relatively little effort and a
relativelylow budget. Their lightness, compactness, robustness, measurement effectiveness and
low power consumption make these sensors useful for manifold applications in diverse fields.
Here, we provide a comprehensive survey of resistive flex sensors, taking into account their
working principles, manufacturing aspects, electrical characteristics and equivalent models,
useful front-end conditioning circuitry, and physic-bio-chemical aspects. Particular effort is
devoted to reporting on and analyzing several applications of resistive flex sensors, related to the
measurement of body position and motion, and to the implementation of artificial devices. In
relation to the human body, we consider the utilization of resistive flex sensors for the
measurement of physical activity and for the development of interaction/interface devices driven
by human gestures. Concerning artificial devices, we deal with applications related to the
automotive field, robots, orthosis and prosthesis, musical instruments and measuring tools. The
presented literature is collected from different sources, including bibliographic databases,
company press releases, patents, master’s theses and PhD theses.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0964-1726/25/1/013001/pdf

Resistive flex sensors: a survey

We introduce RF-Wear, an accurate and wearable solution to track movements of a user's body using passive RFIDs embedded in their clothing. RF-Wear processes wireless signals reflected off these tags to a compact single-antenna RFID reader in the user's pocket. In doing so, RF-Wear enables a first-of-its-kind body-frame tracking mechanism that is lightweight and convenient for day-to-day use, without relying on external infrastructure. At the heart of RF-Wear is a novel primitive that computes angles between different parts of the user's body using the RFID tags attached to them. RF-Wear achieves this by treating groups of RFID tags as an array of antennas whose orientation can be computed accurately relative to the handheld reader. By computing the orientation of individual body parts, we demonstrate how RF-Wear reconstructs the real-time posture of the user's entire body frame. Our solution overcomes multiple challenges owing to the interactions of wireless signals with the body, the 3-D nature of human joints and the flexibility of fabric on which RFIDs are placed. We implement and evaluate a prototype of RF-Wear on commercial RFID readers and tags and demonstrate its performance in body-frame tracking. Our results reveal a mean error of 8--12° in tracking angles at joints that rotate along one degree-of-freedom, and 21°- azimuth, 8°- elevation for joints supporting two degrees-of-freedom.

Towards Wearable Everyday Body-Frame Tracking using Passive RFIDs

Design and validation of a motion-tracking system for ROM measurements in home rehabilitation

In the years, the role of measurement in medicine and healthcare is becoming increasingly relevant, thanks to the always-wider diffusion of electronics in everyday life In particular, measurement and sensors represent one of the key aspects of what is called pervasive healthcare Pervasive healthcare may be defined as the application of pervasive computing technologies for healthcare, as well as the way to make healthcare available everywhere, anytime and to everyone, and aims at changing the healthcare delivery model from doctor-centric to patient-centric, from acute-reactive to continuous preventing, and from sampling to monitoring [1]

Measurements and sensors for motion tracking in motor rehabilitation

The paper presents a review of the scientific literature in the field of measurements aimed at supporting the different phases of the rehabilitation. Several papers have been analyzed and classified on the basis of the rehabilitation phase and the type of proposal.

Electronic measurements in rehabilitation

The paper presents a case study based on a system for the monitoring of daily functions in post-stroke rehabilitation patients. The system is capable of monitoring some daily life functions of the patient, by providing to the rehabilitation experts information about the correct or wrong activation of the monitored muscles during those specific functions. The monitoring system consists of a wearable wireless device, equipped with electrogoniometers and electromyography sensors, and by a signal processing software. Preliminary experiments have been conducted on post-stroke patients.

B. Pavic

Papers

Electronic measurements in rehabilitation

A case study on muscle activation analysis in post-stroke rehabilitation patients