Neurotechnology: from curing the brain to understanding the mind
Event details
| Date | 09.01.2014 |
| Hour | 12:30 › 13:30 |
| Speaker |
Prof John P. Donoghue, Director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, Brown University Bio: Prof. Donoghue earned his B.A. in Biology at Boston University in 1972. He earned his M.S. in Anatomy at the University of Vermont in 1976. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Brown University in 1979. His laboratory investigates how the brain turns thought into voluntary behaviors and how that knowledge can be used to help persons with paralysis. He studies how populations of neurons represent and transform information as a motor plan becomes movement. This approach has required the creation of a novel recording array to study neural ensembles. With the knowledge he has gained about movement representation, he has translated his lab’s findings to a clinical application in which humans with paralysis can use their neurons directly to control devices. |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Neural Engineering is a rapidly expanding field creating neurotechnology to restore lost functions like movement, vision or hearing. These brain interfaces, some now regularly implanted to treat brain disorders, are also providing unprecedented access to the human brain to understand its function at new levels of detail. In my presentation, I will first discuss the range of existing and emerging neurotechnologies and then describe my group’s progress in creating a useful brain computer interface (BCI) to restore independence, communication and control for people with paralysis. A BCI provides a new communication channel to bypass damaged motor pathways from the brain. BrainGate, the first intracortical BCI system in a human clinical pilot trial, is being developed by our group at Brown University and Massachusetts General Hospital. The goal of BrainGate is to restore functions performed by the arm and hand for people with paralysis. BrainGate employs a 4 x 4 mm array of 100 microelectrodes that is chronically implanted into the motor cortex (MI) arm area. This intracortical sensor is intended to provide longterm access to MI neural ensemble activity as a direct source of action command signals. Decoded signals, provided by MI activity when the user thinks about moving their arm, can be used by people with longstanding paralysis to control computer cursors and robotic arms. Our work has also revealed several important fundamental aspects of human motor cortex function. First, local MI regions form integrated reach and grasp networks. Second, MI networks can be engaged merely by imagining actions without performing them. Third, neural circuits retain a relationship to arm actions years after paralysis onset, suggesting that representational plasticity does not occur. Creating flexible, long-lasting BCIs for people with paralysis will require optimization of sensors, fully implanted wireless systems, and better understanding of the neural processes encoding arm action. These steps, which are well underway, have the potential to create a useful BCI able to restore reach, grasp and dexterous manipulation for humans with paralysis of their arm. They will also continue to provide insight into human brain function at the cell ensemble scale and open new directions for neural interfaces to be used to detect and treat a variety of human brain disorders.
Links
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Brain Mind Institute and Center for Neuroprosthetics
Contact
- Peter Geneviève