Pictured above is LiveWire’s premiere performance in Houston. Courtesy of Lynn Lane. University of Hawaii Engineering Professor José Luis Contreras Vidal deployed mobile brain-body imaging technology to listen, map and record the brain activity of dancers, and this performance will feature Virginia’s Wolf His Trapp National Performing Arts. performed at the center.
During a dress rehearsal, University of Houston scientists (right) record dancers’ brain signals.
At the helm is Jose ‘Pepe’ Contreras, Neural Engineer and ‘brain’ of the IUCRC (BRAIN), Neural Engineer, Building Trusted Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology. Vidal. 2027.
Inside the University of Houston’s BRAIN Center, you may meet visual artists, dancers, musicians, and even paralyzed people. Or try to regain movement.
Machines and researchers richly chart the electrical signals of an artist’s brain that move fluidly through activity. From infants to the elderly, people with paralysis who are re-learning basic motor skills wear prosthetic limbs with brain-machine interfaces designed to interpret their thoughts, allowing them to move. As soon as you think of
Coordinating all the activities and watching his fellow researchers put his findings into practice is Jose ‘Pepe’ Contreras-Vidal, the neuroengineer and the “brain behind”. Industry-University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC) for Building Trusted Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (BRAIN). The partnership between UH and Arizona State University includes industry and A world-class academic team.
“Our team of industrial and clinical partners in a variety of fields, from the humanities to artificial intelligence, continues to develop practical neural prostheses and brain-to-brain interfaces. It’s a device that restores movement and communication by using the electrical power of UH, paralyzed by injury or disease, or by neuromodulating nerve signals to restore or enhance brain function and/or human performance.” and Hugh Roy and Lily Kranz Cullen Distinguished Professors of Computer Engineering and Fellows of IEEE and AIMBE.
A global hub that attracts customers
A lot has happened within the BRAIN Center since Phase 1 was first funded by the National Science Foundation in 2017. More members have joined as the Center has become an international hub for emerging neurotechs. New international partners – Miguel Hernández de Elche University (Spain) and Polytechnic University of Monterrey (Mexico) – have joined. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has joined as an Affiliate Member for Summer 2023, along with additional industry members and his three new academic sites (Georgia Tech, University of West Virginia, and University of Maryland-Baltimore County). did.
And in the latest news – Phase 2 of the BRAIN Center (2022-2027) will be funded by NSF with $758,331 to UH, $240,000 to Arizona, plus $2 million from industry partners, and the National Institutes of Health. (NIH) funded. Workforce Development Grant of $768,135. We offer professional training in innovative neurotech, computational tools, and neuroengineering techniques to complement and enhance the training and careers of therapists, clinical fellows, and orthotic and prosthetics professionals.
“NSF-funded IUCRC programs generate groundbreaking research by enabling close and sustained engagement between industry innovators, world-class academic teams, and government agencies,” he said. Behrooz Shirazi, Program Director of the IUCRC Program and Acting Deputy Director of the NSF, said. Computer and Network Systems Division.
Since its inception, the center has attracted 20 industry partners, including Medtronic, CORE Institute, Indus Instruments, Brain Products, and medical institutions such as UTHealth Houston and TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital, ranking second in the nation’s top rehabilitation. Ranked. Hospitals in US News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals” ranking for 2020-2021.
“TIRR Memorial Hermann and UTHealth Houston actively working with the BRAIN Center to identify, develop and validate innovative neurotech solutions to pressing neurorehabilitation challenges is not only challenging, but also cognitively impaired. TIRR Memorial Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Center for NeuroRecovery Research at Herman and Physics Medicine at McGovern Medical School in UTHealth Houston. and Gerard E. Francisco, MD, Chair and Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation, said:
The BRAIN Center is also actively involved in developing brain-machine interface systems, trusted AI applications, roadmaps inspired by the use of emergent neurotechnology, and standards for convergent research at the intersection of art, science and medicine. is. In March Contreras Vidal presents the 2022 International Workshop on the Social and Neural Underpinnings of Creative Movements at the Wolftrap National Center for the Performing Arts, sponsored in part by NSF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Foundation served as co-chair of For the art (NEA) and the brain.
Amr Elnaishai, Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at the University of Houston, said: “They continue to accelerate scientific progress by expanding new participants and retaining current ones.”
If you think it will happen
Contreras-Vidal recommends that when patients are trained to walk or move again with an exoskeleton, they should focus on the end of life, where they want to go. He adopts much the same philosophy for his BRAIN Center.
“As we continue to move the needle in brain technology, our center’s mission to become a neurotechnology hub by creating a pipeline from discovery to solution is fulfilling. , scientists, engineers and humanists to help solve one of the biggest medical and technological unmet healthcare needs of our time,” said Contreras Vidal., He adds that disability is becoming a major health care concern due to an increase in survivable trauma and an aging population.
About 5.4 million people in the United States, or 1 in 50, have paralysis.
“There is a great need for accessible technology that can address care more effectively. Marco Santello, site director at Arizona State University and co-founder of the BRAIN Center, said: “With collaboration and support from industry partners, the neurotechnology solutions being developed at the BRAIN Center are making great strides to address this need.”
