Connectionists: Essex BCI-NE Webinar 15 January: Prof Jonathan Wolpaw

[Matran-Fernandez, Ana]

[cid:image001.png at 01DB40B4.637B7D90]
https://www.linkedin.com/company/essex-bcine-lab/

The Essex BCI-NE Lab invites you to join our next monthly webinar:
21st Century Rehabilitation – New Science, New Strategies, New Expectations
Delivered by
Prof Jonathan Wolpaw
(National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies)

The webinar will take place over Zoom on Wednesday, 15th January 2015, at 2pm UK time
RSVP: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7283128561866080257/

Abstract: Once considered a backwater, neurorehabilitation is now among the most vibrant areas of biomedical research. Until recently, its main strategy has been skill-specific practice, which often fails to produce adequate recovery. Now, new recognition that the CNS remains plastic through life, new understanding of the CNS substrates of skilled behaviors, and newly developed technologies combine to redefine the therapeutic goal and provide new strategies that promise to enhance the efficacy of skill-specific practice.
The substrate of a skill is a network of neurons and synapses that may extend from cortex to spinal cord. This network has been given the name heksor, based on the ancient Greek word hexis (DOI:10.1113/JP283291). Each heksor changes through life; it modifies itself to maintain the key features of its skill, the attributes that make the skill satisfactory. Muscle activity and kinematics may change; key features are maintained. Heksors overlap; they share CNS neurons and synapses. Through their concurrent changes, they keep CNS neuronal and synaptic properties in a negotiated equilibrium that enables each heksor to achieve the key features of its skill.
When CNS damage disrupts important skills, the primary therapeutic goal is to enable damaged heksors to repair themselves and reestablish a negotiated equilibrium in which each can once again produce its skill satisfactorily. Two new strategies can increase the efficacy of skill-specific practice. One new strategy increases the capacity for plasticity. This gives damaged heksors more options for self-repair: they shape the additional plasticity through skill-specific practice. The other new strategy targets beneficial plasticity to a critical site in a damaged heksor. This improves skill-specific practice, which enables the heksor to achieve much wider beneficial plasticity. In animals and humans, combining skill-specific practice with these strategies produces large clinically significant improvements in recovery. These improvements persist.
The challenge now is to develop effective clinically practical multitherapy protocols – protocols that combine these new strategies with skill-specific practice. Computational modeling can help identify and parameterize promising protocols. Controlled clinical trials that evaluate a new protocol mechanistically and compare it to current state-of-the-art treatment are essential. Assessments should evaluate relevant skills, overall function, and quality of life, and should extend at least six months after therapy ends. Study of pre-morbid factors as well as reflexes, evoked potentials, muscle activity, and kinematics during treatment may guide patient-specific protocol modifications. Many multitherapy protocols will be noninvasive and suitable for home use.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Wolpaw is a neurologist who has spent nearly 50 years exploring spinal cord and brain plasticity in animals and humans. His lab originated the protocol for operant conditioning of spinal stretch reflexes. Their extensive physiological and anatomical studies revealed the complex plasticity in spinal cord and brain associated with this ostensibly simple learning. They showed that appropriate reflex conditioning improves walking in rats with spinal cord injuries. With Dr. Aiko Thompson, they found that reflex conditioning improves walking in people with spinal cord injury. This work has led to a new paradigm for how skilled behaviors are acquired and maintained in what is now understood to be a ubiquitously plastic CNS. This new paradigm leads to new therapeutic strategies that are proving successful in clinical studies.
Dr. Wolpaw has also been deeply involved in BCI research. He and Dr. Dennis McFarland first showed the value of EEG sensorimotor rhythms for BCI-based communication and control, including multidimensional control. Their group oversaw the first multicenter trial of a BCI for independent home use by people with severe disabilities. They developed and disseminated the general-purpose software platform BCI2000, which has supported 2,500 peer-reviewed studies worldwide.
Dr. Wolpaw’s research has been supported for >40 years by NIH, the VA, DARPA, and private foundations. He is Director of the NIBIB/NIH-funded National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies (NCAN) and Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the State University of New York. His group’s work has been described in many papers, invited presentations, and lectureships, and recognized by national and international awards. Many students and postdocs have participated and received appropriate recognition. He has contributed to the national and international scientific communities by serving on many advisory committees and review panels; and he served as the first president of the BCI Society.


The Essex BCI-NE Lab webinars series takes place on the first or second Wednesday of the month over Zoom and our webinars are open to all. Speakers are invited to talk about their research for 45-50 minutes followed by a Q&A session/discussion.
Where speakers allow it, we record the talks and make them available to everyone on our YouTube channel. You can watch previous talks at: https://www.youtube.com/@essexbcis

Next speakers:

  *   Guilherme Maia de Oliveira Wood (February 2025) - https://homepage.uni-graz.at/en/guilherme.wood/
  *   Selina Wriessnegger (March 2025) - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y_B7AnAAAAAJ


If you don’t want to miss our next webinars, please email amatra at essex.ac.uk<mailto:amatra at essex.ac.uk> to ask to be added to our webinars mailing list.

Best wishes,
Ana
------------------------
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>

Email notices:
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2) Because of the daily high load of emails, I may take some time to reply to you. If it's important, I may take even more time, because I want to provide an adequate response. If it's urgent, I'll try to reply quickly and maybe just with a very short email. No disrespect, just trying to be efficient - I'd understand if you did the same.

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