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COMPUTATIONAL MODELING OF PACINIAN CORPUSCLE CLUSTER FOR HYBRID STIMULATION

COMPUTATIONAL MODELING OF PACINIAN CORPUSCLE CLUSTER FOR HYBRID STIMULATION

Date16th Jul 2021

Time02:00 PM

Venue Online meeting link: https://meet.google.com/obn-nqmn-hmg

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Details

Human haptics refers to the functional anatomy and physiology of motor and somatosensory systems in humans. Our works involve developing vibrotactile sensation models in human haptics, with applications to machine haptics and robotics. Pacinian Corpuscle (PC) is a mechanoreceptor responsible for sensing high-frequency vibrations. Existing PC models describe the physiology of individual PCs. However, vibration is felt in humans by clusters of PCs rather than a single PC. Our work investigates how a stimulus’s characteristics, such as amplitude, frequency, and location over the skin, are sensed by a PC cluster and transmitted to the CNS through various computational models. In this research, we develop a computational model: 1) to understand how the source localization of a mechanical stimulus (vibration) applied over the skin is transmitted as a neuronal signal, 2) to explain how certain electrical stimuli applied over the skin through an electrode elicits vibration sensation, and 3) to understand how the vibration sensation gets altered in the presence of both electrical and mechanical stimulation. The first model mentioned above relates the time-division multiplexing in Telecommunications to the transmission of neural impulses from a PC cluster. The remaining models focus on the stimulation aspects, finding their applications in designing and implementing electrotactile displays. We validated our model results with experimental data from the literature, and we predicted new results through our models for future experiments. The characterizations we reported using our models can be applied to design and implement better haptic devices. As a case study, we experimented and extended our models to analyze how the vibration perception threshold changes for the patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy to propose early diagnosis.

Speakers

Mr. Madhan Kumar V (AM16D023)

Applied Mechanics Dept.