3:00 pm, Friday, November 16, 2018
SC 107

Brain-Machine Interfacing

Luke Skywalker meets Luigi Galvani: Restoring movement following spinal cord injury with a combination of 18th and 21st century technology

Lee Miller, Professor of Physiology at Northwestern University

Spinal cord injury is devastating, and there is currently no real treatment. Ultimately, weâ??d want to regrow the spinal cord, but in the meantime, it is now possible to literally reconnect the brain and muscles electronically. I will describe experiments in which we record signals directly from a monkeyâ??s brain, translate them into appropriate control signals, and send them to an electrical stimulator that causes muscles to contract. This â??Brain Machine Interfaceâ?? allows voluntary control of paralyzed muscles and could be used to restore movement to human patients with spinal cord injury. We are currently developing new algorithms and wireless technology to move this proof-of-concept neuroprosthesis from the highly constrained lab environment to one more nearly resembling that of a person with SCI going about their daily activities.

John Ross Buschert is the organizer.

Contact: David L Housman, phone 7405, email dhousman@goshen.edu

See also: Science Speakers