I am a 2nd year graduate student in bioengineering, broadly interested in the neural basis of human motor control. My interests tend to lean towards neuroscience with potential medical and rehabilitative applications (e.g. brain-machine interfaces). But in general, I am fascinated by our central nervous system's ability to dexterously maneuver our ungainly bodies through ever-changing environments.
I shifted into bioengineering and neuroscience from a physics background, leaving me with a bit of catching up to do. The literature on the motor cortex and motor control, as with many areas in neuroscience research, is vast--and sometimes very discordant. The lack of solidified understanding is both exciting and daunting for a newcomer like me. I've started this blog as an effort to organize some of my thoughts on important scientific papers I read during my studies. Comments and dialogue with readers could also aid in the idea-digestion process. I plan to post one summary and discussion of a particular paper each week.
I also hope to use this blog to improve and expand my science writing skills. I've long had an interest in writing about science and explaining complex ideas to the general public. It is a non-trivial and very important skill, indeed. As such, each post will be aimed to a science-literate audience at large, rather than neuroscience and bioengineering researchers. If you find any ideas unclear, or have suggestions for improved explanations/examples, please consider these aspects open for discussion too.
I've titled this blog after one of my favorite philosophical (and somewhat silly) questions in neuroscience: Can we humans use our brains to reverse-engineer and fully understand the operations of our brains? This idea conjures up cartoon images of a scientist discovering The Truth of the brain's inner workings, and his brain promptly imploding.
While I don't plan to address this question, I invite you to engage your brain to explore the fascinating world of motor control and neuroscience with me.
Posts
3 comments:
BMI IS IMPOSSIBLE, ELECTRODE IMPEDANCES ARE TOO HIGH, SPATIAL RESOLUTION TOO HIGH, ETC ETC ETC
Impossible seems like an awfully strong assertion. Difficult, absolutely.
My opinions about its ultimate applications to rehabilitation and clinical medicine have certainly shifted a bit since having joined the field. It's not nearly as well developed as popular science coverage etc. make it seem. That's for sure. There are a lot of technical issues that need to be addressed and current understandings of the brain aren't advanced enough yet.
But BMI is a really promising method for investigating brain plasticity, learning, and the performance of ensemble activity. I also haven't lost hope for it eventually having clinical applications. Emphasis on eventually.
Hi Amy,
I think you're suffering some negative feedback on your first post. I hope that eikceb is wrong as I'd like to see this field really take off in the near future. There are several commercially available "bmi" devices (if you want to call it that) already used for diagnostics in neurosurgery, neuroscience, etc. They're just too big to be utilized for highly specific localization. But "If everyone thought it could be done, it would have been done already".
Our field is pretty young and very intimidating. I'm just starting neuroscience courses to flesh out my understanding of what exists in the neuroscience field this year and the experience has been humbling. However, the people I work with seem to think there is no reason we can't create effective BMIs.
I think that the background of a physicist is really quite well suited to the field. The electrical signal collection and analysis is served well by an E&M background and, if your profs pushed problem solving as much as mine did, an excellent stance for a very broad view on the field. In short: physicists are in your field breaking your paradigms :-D.
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