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Improving Communication with the Brain Through Electrode Technologies

Over the past 30 years, bionic devices such as cochlear implants and pacemakers have used a small number of metal electrodes to restore function and monitor activity in patients following disease or injury of excitable tissues. Growing interest in neurotechnologies, facilitated by ventures such as BrainGate, Neuralink, and the European Human Brain Project, has increased public awareness of electrotherapeutics and …

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Brain-Machine Interfaces: Beyond Decoding

A brain-machine interface (BMI) is a system that enables users to interact with computers and robots through the voluntary modulation of their brain activity. Such a BMI is particularly relevant as an aid for patients with severe neuromuscular disabilities, although it also opens up new possibilities in human-machine interaction for able-bodied people. Real-time signal processing and decoding of brain signals …

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Electrophysiologic Monitoring and Modulation of Enteric Nervous Systems

We highlight recent technological and methodological advances in deploying miniaturized technologies that can monitor the spatial electrophysiologic patterns of the visceral nervous system. As an example, we discuss recent developments of thin, stretchable, wireless biosensor patches that can be embedded within routinely used medical adhesives for recording electrophysiologic patterns of the GI tract. We also showcase recent developments in array …

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The Challenge and Opportunities of Mapping Cortical Layer Activity

A major outstanding challenge in neuroscience is to integrate across levels of investigation, linking genes, molecules, cells, microcircuits, regions, systems, and behavior. This will require bringing together evidence from sources across different spatial scales—from the microscopic, such as electrophysiological recordings in animals, to the macroscopic, such as conventional neuroimaging in humans. The mesoscale technique of depth-dependent fMRI, or “layer fMRI” …

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Dynamical Neuromorphic Systems

In this talk, I aim to show that the dynamical properties of emerging nanodevices can accelerate the development of smart, and environmentally-friendly chips that inherently learn through their physics. The goal of neuromorphic computing is to draw inspiration from the architecture of the brain to build low-power circuits for artificial intelligence. I will first give a brief overview of the …

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From 1D to 5D: Data-driven Discovery of Whole-brain Dynamic Connectivity in fMRI Data

The analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data can greatly benefit from flexible analytic approaches. In particular, the advent of data-driven approaches to identify whole-brain time-varying connectivity and activity has revealed a number of interesting relevant variation in the data which, when ignored, can provide misleading information. In this lecture, I will provide a comparative introduction of a range …

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Seeing the Sound: Optical Neural Interfaces for In Vivo Neuromodulation

Optogenetics has transformed experimental neuroscience by manipulating the activity of specific cell types with light, enabling in vivo neuromodulation with millisecond temporal resolution. Visible light with wavelengths between 430 nm and 640 nm is used for optogenetics, limiting penetration depth in vivo and resulting in an invasive fiber-tethered interface that damages the endogenous neural tissue and constrains the animal’s free …

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Brain Machine Interfaces: Concept to Clinic

Over the last two decades neural prostheses that aim to restore lost motor function have moved quickly from concept to laboratory development and clinical demonstration. In parallel, advances in neural interfacing technologies poised to broaden clinical application of these prostheses are actively in development in both academic and industry settings.