Flexible regulation of representations on a drifting manifold enables long-term stable complex neuroprosthetic control

Abstract

The nervous system needs to balance the stability of neural representations with plasticity. It is unclear what is the representational stability of simple actions, particularly those that are well-rehearsed in humans, and how it changes in new contexts. Using an electrocorticography brain-computer interface (BCI), we found that the mesoscale manifold and relative representational distances for a repertoire of simple imagined movements were remarkably stable. Interestingly, however, the manifolds absolute location demonstrated day-to-day drift. Strikingly, representational statistics, especially variance, could be flexibly regulated to increase discernability during BCI control without somatotopic changes. Discernability strengthened with practice and was specific to the BCI, demonstrating remarkable contextual specificity. Accounting for drift, and leveraging the flexibility of representations, allowed neuroprosthetic control of a robotic arm and hand for over 7 months without recalibration. Our study offers insight into how electrocorticography can both track representational statistics across long periods and allow long-term complex neuroprosthetic control.