ABSTRACT
Amputation of a limb involves the complete transection of afferent and efferent nerves innervated the removed limb. Sensory feedback from the missing part of the limb is thus severely impaired. While most amputees experience that the absent limbs still exist, artificial activation of the residual afferent neurons likely enhances the sensory feedback by creating more specific sensations, e.g., joint position or finger movement. However, effective stimulation patterns for creating natural sensory feedback are uniquely characterized in the literature. The magnitude of a sensation is commonly estimated using scaling methods by assigning a number to the perceptual event such as sensation. The software was developed in the LabVIEW environment. Control of the electrical stimulator was implemented through accessing a set of application programming interface functions built in dynamic linked libraries provided by the stimulator developer. The ISI subsystem software includes two main user interfaces: the interface for threshold determination and the interface for sensation characterization.
