Organizer: Karim Oweiss
Our ultimate understanding of the nervous system as a complex system is reflected in our ability to predict its dynamics in the normal state and eventually control these dynamics in the pathological state. Interest in neural interface technology that provide a direct communication pathway between the nervous system and man-made, computing devices has been surging, primarily due to striking advances in measuring and manipulating neural dynamics at exceedingly high temporal and spatial resolutions, and to characterize the ever-changing interplay between the neural structure and function. These interfaces also offer an unprecedented opportunity to improve our understanding of brain dynamics in a unique behavioral context, and to improve the lifestyle of many neurologically impaired subjects.
Over the last decade, significant progress has been made in the development and initial clinical translation of high-performance neural interface technologies. Notably, multiple research groups are now testing these systems in subjects implanted with high-density arrays of penetrating microelectrodes in target regions. Although long-term reliability of these interfaces remains challenging, these studies have demonstrated that these implants are safe and hold great potential to restore, for example, volitional control to people with profound motor disabilities. Equally important, there is a growing awareness of the need to provide artificial sensory feedback to users controlling prosthetic, or natural but impaired, limbs. This symposium will highlight recent work aimed at providing efferent control and/or afferent feedback via neural interfaces that target various levels of the sensorimotor system. The symposium will also highlight methods to optimize the stimulation to enable bi-directional exchange of information with the nervous system with the goal of inducing neuroplasticity to restore sensory, cognitive and motor functions.
List of Speakers
Krishna Shenoy, Ph.D. ‘Toward clinically-viable brain machine interfaces: from basic science and engineering to clinical trials’
Krishna V. Shenoy, PhD, is the Hong Seh and Vivian W. M. Lim Professor of Engineering. He is with the Departments of Electrical Engineering and by courtesy, Bioengineering and Neurobiology at Stanford University. He is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Prof. Shenoy holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Irvine (1987-1990), a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT (1990-1995), was a postdoctoral fellow in Neurobiology at Caltech (1995-2001), and has been on faculty at Stanford since then (Assistant Prof. 2001-2008, Associate Prof. 2008-2012, Full Prof. 2012-2017, Endowed Chair 2017 to present). Prof. Shenoy directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab (basic neuroscience and engineering) and co-directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory (clinical trials), which aim to help restore lost motor function to people with paralysis. Honors and awards include a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences, a Sloan Fellow, a McKnight Technological Innovations in Neurosciences Award, an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2010 Stanford University Postdoc Mentoring Award, and he was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows. Prof. Shenoy serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of The University of Washington’s Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center), CTRL-Labs (formerly Cognescent Inc). and Heal Inc.He is also a consultant for Neuralink Corp.
Ted Berger, PhD: “Cognitive Neuroprosthesis for enhancing memory function”
Dr. Theodore W. Berger is the David Packard Professor of Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California.
Karim G. Oweiss, PhD: “Natural and Artificial Shaping of Neural Correlations for Clinically Viable Bi-directional Neural Interfaces”
Karim G. Oweiss is the Preeminence Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and a Professor of Neuroscience and Neurology at the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida. Prof. Oweiss holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1998-2002), was a postdoctoral fellow in Neural Engineering (2002-2003), Assistant (2003-2009) and Associate Professor (2009-2014) at Michigan State, Full professor at the University of Florida (2014-present). He has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles on topics such as the neurobiology of sensorimotor function and dysfunction, bi-directional brain-machine interfaces, computational neuroscience, statistical signal processing, neural information and control theories. Dr. Oweiss is a senior member of the IEEE and the Society for Neuroscience. He is the editor and co-author of the book: Statistical Signal Processing for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, published by Academic Press in 2010.
Maryam Shanechi, PhD “Neural decoding and control of mood to treat neuropsychiatric disorders”
Maryam M. Shanechi is Assistant Professor and Viterbi Early Career Chair in Electrical Engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC). She is also a faculty member at the Neuroscience Graduate Program at USC. Prior to joining USC, she was Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She received her B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto in 2004 and her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2006 and 2011, respectively. She held postdoctoral positions at Harvard Medical School and at UC Berkeley from 2011-2013. She directs the Neural Systems Engineering Lab at USC. Her research is focused on developing closed-loop neurotechnologies through mathematical decoding and control of brain networks to treat neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. She is the recipient of various awards including the NSF CAREER Award, the MIT Technology Review’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35 (TR35), the Popular Science Brilliant 10, and an ARO multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) award.
Chad Bouton, PhD,“Neural Decoding and Restoring Hand Function in Tetraplegia”
Prof. Chad Bouton is the VP of Advanced Engineering and the Director of the Center for Bioelectronic Medicine at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the research arm of the Northwell Health System in New York.
Professor Bouton formerly served as research leader at Battelle Memorial Institute-the world’s largest independent research and development organization-where he spent 18 years researching and developing biomedical technology. At the Feinstein Institute, he is performing groundbreaking research in neurotechnology to treat paralysis and is developing new technologies to accelerate the field of bioelectronic medicine.
Professor Bouton’s pioneering work, allowing a paralyzed person for the first time to regain movement using a brain implant, has been featured on 60 Minutes, CBS, and presented at TEDx. He holds over 70 patents worldwide and his technologies have been awarded three R&D 100 Awards and he was recognized by the US Congress for his work in the medical device field. He has been named Inventor of the Year and Distinguished Inventor by Battelle, and was selected by the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 to attend the Frontiers in Engineering Symposium.
08:30 – 08:35 Introduction
08:35 – 09:15 Speaker 1: Chad Bouton, MS, “Neural Decoding and Restoring Hand Function in Tetraplegia”
09:15 – 10:00 Speaker 2: Robert Gaunt Ph.D., “Somatosensation for implantable human brain machine interfaces”
10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15 – 11:00 Speaker 3: Krishna Shenoy, Ph.D.: ‘Toward clinically-viable brain machine interfaces: from basic science and engineering to clinical trials’
11:00 – 12:00 Morning Panel Discussion
12:00 – 01:30 Lunch Break
01:30 – 02:15 Speaker 4: Karim Oweiss, Ph.D.: “Targeted Neuroplasticity: Natural and Artificial Shaping of Neural Correlations for Clinically Viable Bi-directional Neural Interfaces”
02:15 – 03:00 Speaker 5: Ted Berger, PhD: “Cognitive Neuroprosthesis for enhancing memory function”
03:00 – 03:15 Break
03:15 – 04:00 Speaker 6: Maryam Shanechi, PhD: “Neural decoding and control of mood to treat neuropsychiatric disorders”
04:00 – 05:00 Panel discussion
05:00 Adjourn