Date: Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Time: 1-2pm
Venue: University House, UH 136, University House, UH 136, Stratford Campus London E15 4LZ
by Professor Duncan Turner
The human brain is extremely clever at controlling goal-directed movements and tasks. Simply reaching to grasp, pick up and bring a cup towards the mouth involves a tremendous level of skill and know-how. Nevertheless, in everyday situations, we rarely even register that we performing such a task that involves dozens of muscles and exquisite 3-dimensional adjustments of shoulder, elbow, wrist and finger joints.
We have been developing several techniques that enable us to measure brain waves and stimulate the healthy human motor cortex, which lies just beneath the skull, during such complex arm movements using a robotic joystick. The robotic device uses virtual reality to mimic real-life situations by applying resistance to the subject's attempts to reach out and bring a heavy cup to the mouth for example.
Imagine how difficult this may become if the brain is injured in some way. Having a stroke is one example of this predicament and it becomes extremely difficult for a stroke survivor to maintain the skills needed to perform some of the reaching tasks we study. We are now embarking on an extremely exciting programme of research which targets helping stroke patients to re-learn complex motor skills. This is achieved by reversing the robot-controlled resistance to movement in a healthy subject to robot-controlled assistance, whereby the robot helps the stroke patient to re-learn how to reach successfully.
Professor Duncan Turner and final year PhD student, Xiaojun Tang, conduct their research in the Brain Function & NeuRobotics Lab. in the School of Health and Bioscience at UEL Stratford campus. Prof. Turner has a research background in human neuroscience and exercise physiology gained from the UK, EU and USA. Xiaojun gained several years experience of computer neuroscience and research into epilepsy in China before coming to the UK to study with Prof. Turner's group.
Together with other members of the BFN Lab., they have developed techniques such as EEG to measure brain waves and non-invasive transcranial magnetic and direct current stimulation of the human brain in such a way as to begin to understand "signature" changes in brain function whilst using the robotic devices.
The results are used in three main ways. Firstly, in defining how the "healthy" brain can learn new motor skills when we alter the robot resistance. Secondly, to test how the injured brain of a stroke patient works when attempting to reach with the robot and how well stroke patients can re-learn motor skills using the robot. Lastly, we hope to develop brain-computer interfaces (BCI), whereby brain waves or brain stimulation can drive increasingly complex computer functions but without the use of limbs, for example after spinal cord injury.
This lecture will be of particular interest to students studying human brain function in neuroscience, psychology and exercise physiology as well as bioengineering.
All welcome, admission FREE.
For further details and to confirm your attendance, contact Melissa Marr, Research Assistant, Environmental Research Group - ERG, on 020 8223 4985 or m.marr@uel.ac.uk
For travel information to our Stratford campus see:www.uel.ac.uk/about_uel/why_uel/stratford
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