The IEEE Brain Initiative eNewsletter is a quarterly online publication launched in January 2017. It features practical and timely information and forward-looking commentary on neurotechnologies and neuroengineering. eNewsletter articles can describe recent breakthroughs in research, primers on methods of interests, or report recent events such as conferences or workshops. You can contact the eNewsletter editor with any questions concerning the topic or content of your article.
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An affective computing aspect on similarities and differences in emotion recognition with EEG and eye movements among Chinese, German, and French people
December 2022
RESEARCH
Wei Liu, Bao-Liang Lu
Emotions, especially facial expressions, used to be thought of as universal all around the world: we would cry when we are sad, and we would smile when we are happy. However, you might have experienced that you do not laugh after hearing a foreign joke realizing that the joke has distinct cultural backgrounds. Emotions, therefore, seem to have both universal and culturally variable components. Understanding the relationship between cultures and emotions can help us know whether emotions affect physical health in the same way across various cultures and inform us about the effectiveness of mental health interventions for patients with different cultural backgrounds. In addition, from the aspect of affective computing, a deep comprehension of cultural influences on emotions can help us build emotion recognition models for generalizing to people around the world.
Self-stretchable Christmas-tree-shaped Ultraflexible Neural Probes
December 2022
RESEARCH
Ye Tian, Cunkai Zhou, Kuikui Zhang, Huiran Yang, Zhaohan Chen, Zhitao Zhou, Xiaoling Wei, Tiger H. Tao, Liuyang Sun
Implantable flexible neural probes have been demonstrated bridging the mechanical mismatch between invasive probes and brain tissues, minimizing footprint in brain, and chronic biocompatibility [1]. However, conventional needle-shaped flexible neural probes reported before have recording sites distributed vertically along a relatively narrow shank [2], which limits the lateral range in which the probes may record neural signals. Although designs with more probe shanks expand the lateral detectable range, the high implantation density reflects in increased tissue damage and surgery complexity. In this work, we developed a flexible neural probe by novel Christmas-tree structure, which has branches that are foldable along the shank by temporary encapsulation before implantation and self-stretchable after the encapsulation dissolves after implantation. The probe we developed affords increased lateral sensing range without causing extra brain tissue damage.
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On-chip seizure detectors that learn on their own
Adelson Chua and Rikky Muller Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley Epilepsy affects about 50 million people worldwide and is characterized by recurring seizures that can lead to involuntary movements, loss of consciousness, and even death. Several technology-based solutions for monitoring and treating epilepsy have emerged in recent years involving wearable and implantable …
A new paradigm for probabilistic neuromorphic programming
P. Michael Furlong1* and Chris Eliasmith1 1Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave., Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Ontario, Canada. *Corresponding author(s). E-mail(s): michael.furlong@uwaterloo.ca; Contributing authors: celiasmith@uwaterloo.ca; Keywords: probability, Bayesian modelling, vector symbolic architecture, fractional binding, spatial semantic pointers 1 Introduction Since it was first introduced neuromorphic hardware has held the promise of capturing some of …
Direct-Digitization Neural Readouts for Fully-Integrated and High-Density Neural Recording
Monitoring large groups of neurons in various brain regions, including superficial and deep structures, is crucial for advancing neuroscience research on cognition, motor control, behavior, among other areas [1], [2]. Current extracellular CMOS high-density neural probes are becoming the new standard in electrophysiology, allowing for simultaneous recording with excellent spatial and temporal resolution [3]–[5]. However, there is still a demand for neural recording technologies that can access a significantly larger number of neurons, allowing for the decoding of more complex motor, sensory, and cognitive tasks. To achieve this, it is necessary to develop neural probes with much higher number of channels, which requires the design of readout circuits that meet several requirements, including: i) area- and power-efficiency, ii) low noise to capture weak neural signals, iii) capability to interface with large-impedance and high-DC-offset electrodes, and iv) tolerance to artifacts caused by movement or concurrent electrical stimulation.
An Interview with the 2022 SSCS-Brain Joint society best paper award winner
In 2022, Prof. Mahsa Shoaran together with Uisub Shin, Laxmeesha Somappa, Cong Ding, Yashwanth Vyza, Bingzhao Zhu, Alix Trouillet, Stéphanie P. Lacour from EPFL won the SSCS-Brain joint society best paper award. In an interview with the winners of the award, the IEEE Brain Magazine discussed more potential impact of their work.
NeuRRAM: RRAM Compute-In-Memory Chip for Efficient, Versatile, and Accurate AI Inference
December 2022
RESEARCH
Weier Wan, Rajkumar Kubendran, Clemens Schaefer, S. Burc Eryilmaz, Wenqiang Zhang, Dabin Wu, Stephen Deiss, Priyanka Raina, He Qian, Bin Gao, Siddharth Joshi, Huaqiang Wu, H.-S. Philip Wong, Gert Cauwenberghs
AI-powered edge devices such as smart wearables, smart home appliances, and smart Internet-of-things (IoT) sensors are already pervasive in our lives. Yet, most of these devices are only smart when they are connected to the internet. Under limited battery capacity and cost budget, local chipsets inside these devices are only capable of relatively simple data processing, while the more computationally demanding AI tasks are offloaded to the remote cloud.