Real-time control of stepper motors for mechano-sensory stimulation.
Mechanical stimulation is widely used to study sensory encoding in the nervous system of living organisms. The stimulation of mechano-receptor neurons is achieved through a large variety of devices that generate movement or vibration. In many situations, a hard real-time (RT) control of the device (in the millisecond time scale) is needed to produce realistic mechanical stimuli. The real-time control can be required to achieve the desired precision in the device or to implement activity-dependent stimulation protocols that imply the detection of physiological events to drive the stimulus in real time. In this paper we show that real-time software technology can be used to control stepper motors for mechano-receptor stimulation, and to implement artificial closed-loops to address the sensory-motor transformation. We illustrate this using as an example the control of a stepper motor to precisely move gravimetric organs in in vitro preparations.
Grupo de Neurocomputación Biológica, Dpto. de Ingeniería Informática, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain. carlos.muniz.solaz@gmail.com
Carlos
C
Muñiz
Rafael
R
Levi
Meriem
M
Benkrid
Francisco B
FB
Rodríguez
Pablo
P
Varona
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008954:Models, Biological; D008974:Mollusca; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D011434:Proprioception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014584:User-Computer Interface