4:00 pm, Friday, October 31, 2014
SC 106

Science Speaker

The NU Cyborg: A Brain Machine Interface to Restore Movement and Sensation During Paralysis

Dr. Lee Miller, Edgar C. Stuntz Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience, Departments of Physiology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University

Spinal cord injury severs the connection between the brain and the limbs, causing paralysis and loss of proprioceptive sensation. We have developed an electronic neural interface that uses a computer to bypass the spinal cord, providing experimental monkeys the ability to use their hands and sense limb movement despite temporary paralysis caused by a peripheral nerve block. This novel ?Brain Machine Interface?, uses microelectrode arrays implanted in the brain to record motor signals as the monkey tries to move, as well as to electrically activate sensory areas of the brain to create an artificial sensation of limb movement. We anticipate that such a system might ultimately provide spinal cord injured patients with control of arm and hand movement through normal cognitive processes, thereby greatly enhancing their independence and well-being.

Lee E. Miller is the Edgar C. Stuntz Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience in the Departments of Physiology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. He received the B.A. degree in physics from Goshen College, Goshen, IN, in 1980, and the M.S. degree in biomedical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in physiology from Northwestern University in 1983 and 1989, respectively. He completed two years of postdoctoral training in the Department of Medical Physics, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Dr. Miller has had a career-long interest in the motor and sensory signals that are generated by single neurons in the brain during arm movement. His early work was devoted to studying these signals in the brainstem, cerebral cortex, and cerebellum, and their relation to muscle activity. In the past 10 years, Dr. Miller?s lab has increasingly focused on translational research, pioneering the use of brain machine interface technology in projects aimed at restoring movement and sensation to paralyzed patients. His interdisciplinary approach has led to productive collaborations locally, nationally, and internationally. In 1997, Dr. Miller received a North Atlantic Treaty Organization award to promote international collaborative research for a project at the University of Bochum, Germany. He was later appointed a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Neurology at the University College London in 2002. He has authored 90 manuscripts, book chapters, and review articles.

Miller currently serves as a board member and officer for the Society for the Neural Control of Movement and a board member of the International Brain-Computer Interface Steering Committee.

Contact: David Housman, phone 7061, email dhousman@goshen.edu