National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies

The rapidly growing field of adaptive neurotechnologies applies recent advances in neuroscience and engineering to establish real-time adaptive interactions with the nervous system that enable new scientific understanding and generate new therapeutic and diagnostic methods. Examples include brain-computer interfaces, deep brain stimulation, and operant conditioning of spinal reflexes. The realization of these technologies involves neuroscience, biomedical engineering, signal processing, mathematics, computer science, and clinical and commercial domains. Thus, their development and dissemination require leaders with knowledge and expertise that span all these disciplines.

Course Design and Organization

The course begins with a series of on-demand video lectures on a variety of neurotechnology topics. The workshop has demonstrations and hands-on exercises with BCI2000, NCAN's general-purpose, open-source data acquisition software platform, and the Evoked Potential Operant Conditioning System (EPOCS), the clinical counterpart of BCI2000. It will include demonstrations of neurotechnologies for real-time multimodal interactions with the nervous system, including EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and EMG-based reflex operant conditioning protocols, with hands-on sessions in which the workshop participants learn how to apply BCI2000 and EPOCS, practice the methodologies used for adaptive neurotechnologies, and design and implement experiments.

Prior to the workshop, we will provide you with links to pre-recorded lectures that will provide you with the neuroscience and engineering background that you will need to fully benefit from the workshop. The workshop will begin on the evening of July 10, and then run 9:00 am-5:00 pm for the next four days. Topics to be covered include: signals, signal processing and feature extraction, hardware and software, and applications.

The workshop is limited to 24 participants. Modestly priced housing will be available at the nearby College of St. Rose. Workshop participants are responsible for their own transportation, housing, and food. Email us at summercourse2023@neurotechcenter.org with any questions about the course. A limited number of scholarships are available.

Who should apply?

Early to mid-career scientists, engineers, or clinicians, e.g., junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, clinical residents or fellows, advanced graduate or medical students.

Overview

The National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies (NCAN), which is supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, is the culmination of a unique research program that has developed over several decades. This program is founded on two major advances, one scientific and one technical. The scientific advance is the recognition that activity-dependent plasticity occurs continually throughout the central nervous system (CNS) and throughout life. The technical advance is the widespread availability of hardware and software that can support complex real-time interactions with the nervous system.

The scientists and engineers of NCAN have both contributed to and taken advantage of these advances; and they have built a unique technical and procedural infrastructure that supports beneficial real-time interactions with the CNS. They are using this infrastructure to produce important new scientific insights and novel therapeutic methods. They are realizing adaptive systems that interact with the nervous system in real time to achieve three important goals: guiding beneficial CNS plasticity; restoring lost neuromuscular functions; and characterizing and localizing brain processes both spatially and temporally.

These three goals and the adaptive systems dedicated to them are the foci of NCAN ’s three technical research and development (TR&D) projects. These projects use a suite of related hardware/software platforms and real-time analysis methods that are continually updated and expanded. Through energetic interactions with a set of outstanding collaborators, NCAN personnel are developing and using each project as a basic research tool and are also translating it into important new clinical applications. NCAN is thereby increasing understanding of CNS function and dysfunction; and it is realizing effective new therapies for a wide range of devastating neurological disorders.

In addition, NCAN provides an extensive program of training and dissemination activities and resources. The goal of this program is to create and maintain an ecosystemof people, knowledge, and hardware and software that enables and promotes the widespread use and further development of adaptive technologies by scientists, engineers, and clinicians to address important scientific and clinical problems. This program includes training courses and workshops, presentations at meetings and institutions, internships and other opportunities to work NCAN scientists and engineers, software and hardware resources, training manuals, technical support mechanisms, opportunities for user interactions, and promotion of uniform hardware/software standards.

For questions, contact us at admin@neurotechcenter.org.

The National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies is part of the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, NY; its grant support is overseen by the Albany Research Institute, Inc., a not-for profit corporation organized under the New York State not-for-profit Corporation Law. It is exempt under Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code.

Translating Adaptive Neurotechnologies: Methodologies for Real-time Interactions with the Nervous System

National Center for Adaptive NeurotechnologiesStratton VA Medical CenterAlbany, NYJuly 2023

Adaptive Neurotechnologies

Course Design and Organization

Who should apply?

Translating Adaptive Neurotechnologies:
Methodologies for Real-time Interactions with the Nervous System

National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies
Stratton VA Medical Center
Albany, NY
July 2023