what is neural engineering

What is Neural Engineer-ing

Tae-Seong Kim, Ph.D.

Neural Engineering• Neural engineering also known as

Neuroengineering is a discipline that uses engineering techniques to under-stand, repair, replace, enhance, or treat the diseases of neural systems.

• Neural engineers are uniquely qualified to solve design problems at the interface of living neural tissue and non-living on-structs.

[wikipedia.org]

Overview• This field of engineering draws on the fields of

computational neuroscience, experimental neu-roscience, clinical neurology, electrical engineering and signal processing of living neural tissue, and encompasses elements from robotics, cybernetics, computer engineering, neural tissue engineering, materials science, and nanotechnology.

• Prominent goals in the field include restoration and augmentation of human function via direct interactions between the nervous system and artificial devices.

Overview• Much current research is focused on under-

standing the coding and processing of infor-mation in the sensory and motor systems, quantifying how this processing is altered in the pathological state, and how it can be ma-nipulated through interactions with artificial devices including brain-computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics.

• Other research concentrates more on investi-gation by experimentation, including the use of neural implants connected with external technology.

History• As neural engineering is a relatively new field, in-

formation and research relating to it is compara-tively limited, although this is changing rapidly. The first journals specifically devoted to neural engineering, The Journal of Neural Engineering and The Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation both emerged in 2004. Inter-national conferences on neural engineering have been held by the IEEE since 2003, most recently from 29 April until 2 May 2009 in Antalya, Turkey 4th Conference on Neural Engineering.

Neurons

Dictionary

Or

What We Measure in the Brain?

What Do We Need?

Neural Spikes

Conductance-based Silicon Neurons(Mahowald et al, Nature, 1991)

Brain-Machine Interface

Brain-Machine Interface

Robot controlled by human thought alone (2009.03.31)

Brain-Machine Interface

Brain-Machine Interface

IEEE-Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

Future Neural Prosthetics

Brain Machine Interface

Amputee

Ottobock

Johns Hopkins Limb Prosthesis Research: Brain Machine Inter-face (BMI) Technology: AIMBE and IEEE Fellow, Prof. Nitish Thakor, Ph.D.

• Mechanical Engineers and members of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers are involved in many as-pects of prosthesis and orthosis de-sign, development and testing includ-ing:– Materials and manufacturing methods– Robotic-assist prosthesis and orthoses– Development of sensory feedback

technology for improvement of pros-thesis performance

– Computational modeling of human movement and prosthesis mechanics

– Motion analysis in the assessment of human movement and prosthesis func-tion

American Society for Mechanical Engineers

American Society for Mechanical Engineers

•Hugh Herr, MIT - Using biomechanics and biological movement control science to design human rehabilitation and augmentation technology including a powered leg prosthesis.

•Kathryn DeLaurentis, U.South Florida - A powered flexion/extension and rotation prosthetic wrist.