![neuroprosthetics-large[1].jpg](/sites/default/files/featured-news-images/neuroprosthetics-large%5B1%5D.jpg)
Biological and bionic hands: Natural neural coding and artificial perception
Description
The first decade and a half of the twenty-first century brought about two major innovations in neuroprosthetics: the development of anthropomorphic robotic limbs that replicate much of the function of a native human arm and the refinement of algorithms that decode intended movements from brain activity. However, skilled manipulation of objects requires somatosensory feedback, for which vision is a poor substitute. For upper-limb neuroprostheses to be clinically viable, they must therefore provide for the restoration of touch and proprioception. In my lab, I am developing approaches to elicit meaningful tactile sensations through stimulation of neurons in somatosensory cortex. I adopt a biomimetic approach to sensory restoration, which leverages our current understanding about how information about grasped objects is encoded in the brain of intact individuals. I argue that not only can sensory neuroscience inform the development of sensory neuroprostheses, but also that the converse is true: stimulating the brain offers an exceptional opportunity to causally interrogate neural circuits and test hypotheses about natural neural coding.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Sliman Bensmaia received a B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of Virginia in 1995, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 2003, under the tutelage of Dr. Mark Hollins. He then joined the laboratory of Dr. Kenneth Johnson, at the Johns Hopkins University Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2009, Dr. Bensmaia joined the faculty in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, where he is also a member of the Committees on Neurobiology and on Computational Neuroscience. Bensmaia is a leading expert on the neural basis of somatosensation in human and non-human primates, which his laboratory investigates by combining psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computational modeling. Bensmaia also seeks to apply insights from basic science to develop approaches to convey sensory feedback in upper-limb neuroprostheses.