Toward the Bionic Face

What is it about?

Facial palsy is a devastating condition amenable to rehabilitation by functional electrical stimulation. Herein, a novel paradigm for unilateral facial reanimation via an implantable neuroprosthetic device is proposed and its feasibility demonstrated in a live rodent model. The paradigm comprises use of healthy-side electromyography activity as control inputs to a system whose outputs are neural stimuli to effect symmetric facial displacements. The vexing issue of suppressing undesirable activity resulting from aberrant neural regeneration (i.e., synkinesis) or nerve transfer procedures is addressed using proximal neural blockade. The use of proximal neural blockade coupled with distal functional electrical stimulation may have relevance to rehabilitation of other peripheral motor nerve deficits._x000D_ _x000D_

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