Max Hodak gave a talk in Teleplace on October 17, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET).
Brain-machine interfacing: current work and future directions
Max Hodak - http://younoodle.com/people/max_hodak
Abstract: Fluid, two-way brain-machine interfacing represents one of the greatest challenges of modern bioengineering. It offers the potential to restore movement and speech to the locked-in, and ultimately allow us as humans to expand far beyond the biological limits we're encased in now. But, there's a long road ahead. Today, noninvasive BMIs are largely useless as practical devices and invasive BMIs are critically limited, though progress is being made everyday. Microwire array recording is used all over the world to decode motor intent out of cortex to drive robotic actuators and software controls. Electrical intracortical microstimulation is used to "write" information to the brain, and optogenetic methods promise to make that easier and safer. Monkey models can perform tasks from controlling a walking robot to feeding themselves with a 7-DOF robotic arm. Before we'll be able to make the jump to humans, biocompatibility of electrodes and limited channel counts are significant hurdles that will need to be crossed. These technologies are still in their infancy, but they're a huge opportunity in science for those motivated to help bring them through to maturity.
Members of the ASIM community already know Max as a prolific and energetic contributor in a variety of our discussions and workshops.
Seating was arranged by Giulio Prisco for this Teleplace virtual conference event.
Link to article with full-length videos of the event: http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/max-hodak-on-brain-machine-interfacing-current-work-and-future-directions-teleplace-october-17/
Article announcing the talk: http://telexlr8.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/max-hodak-on-brain-machine-interfacing-current-work-and-future-directions-teleplace-october-17-10am-pst/