DO-IT Students Explore Sensorimotor Neural Engineering

On March 16th, 2012 DO-IT students went to the UW's Center for Neurotechnology to learn about the field and complete a learning lab. Students learned about signal processing in the visual cortex, observed action potentials in a cockroach leg, and operated a "carbot" that was controlled by electrodes that sense muscle movements. Afterwards, DO-IT students helped create a video about the event!

The CNT website states "Over the last decade, the field of neural engineering has demonstrated to the world that a computer cursor, a wheelchair, or a simple prosthetic limb can be controlled using direct brain-machine and brain-computer neural signals. Future technologies that allow such accomplishments will enable versatile and highly complex interactions with sophisticated environments. Intelligent systems and robots seek to sense and move like biological systems, and devices implanted in or interfaced with neural systems attempt to process neural data robustly, safely, and in a functionally meaningful way. Doing so requires a critical ingredient: a novel, neural-inspired approach based on a deep understanding of how biological systems acquire and process information. This is the focus of the Center for Neurotechnology (CNT)."