Connectionists: Essex BCI-NE webinar series: Dr Maitreyee Wairagkar - 6th November

[Matran-Fernandez, Ana]

Dear colleagues,

As the organiser of the Essex Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering (BCI-NE) seminar series, I am emailing to advertise our next webinar: Dr Maitreyee Wairagkar.

Title: High-performance speech neuroprosthesis by decoding intracortical neural activity of person with ALS

Abstract: Neurological injury or disease can lead to paralysis causing severe speech impairments, dramatically reducing the quality of life and independence in millions of people. BCIs can offer a potential solution to restore lost speech by bypassing damaged parts of the nervous system and directly deciphering their brain signals. I will talk about my research on implanted intracortical BCIs to restore naturalistic speech to a person with ALS. We decoded their neural signals into words (brain-to-text) or directly synthesized their voice (brain-to-voice) from the activity of hundreds of single neurons recorded from surgically implanted microelectrode arrays in the speech-motor cortex. Brain-to-text BCI enabled the participant to communicate with high accuracy for his personal use. Taking a step further, the brain-to-voice decoder instantaneously synthesizes voice with closed-loop audio feedback and decodes paralinguistic features in voice allowing the participant to speak expressively through the voice BCI by changing his intonation, emphasizing words and also sing short melodies.

Biography: Dr Maitreyee Wairagkar is a neuroscientist and neuroengineer developing advance neurotechnology using artificial intelligence. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar at University of California Davis, USA where she has built implanted brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to enable people with severe speech and motor impairments to communicate directly via their brain signals. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London, UK. She earned her PhD and MEng degrees in AI and Cybernetics from the University of Reading, UK. Her research focuses on healthcare applications of neurotechnology in rehabilitation and assistive devices for people with different neurological conditions, for example, enabling a person with paralysis to fluently speak through a neuroprosthesis, neurorehabilitation for stroke recovery and robotic care for dementia. Her previous research has also been commercially translated. She has received the 2023 International BCI Award, 2022 Nature Inspiring Women in Science Award runner up and India UK Achievers Honours 2023.

The seminar will be delivered over Zoom on 6th November, 4pm UK time. Link to event in our Linkedin event here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/essexbci-newebinarspresentsdrma7257830946165469185/ (or email Dr Matran-Fernandez for access). The talk will be recorded and made available in the lab's Youtube channel shortly after.

Best wishes,
Ana
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Dr Ana Matran-Fernandez PhD
Lecturer in Neural Engineering and Artificial Intelligence
Department of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CSEE)
University of Essex
Office: 5B.539
E amatra at essex.ac.uk<mailto:amatra at essex.ac.uk>

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