Congratulations go out to Justin Ingram and Madineh Sedigh Sarvestani for earning 1st and 2nd prize for graduate student poster presentations at the Penn State Neuroscience Research Days. The event was held November 22-23, 2009 at the Penn State Conference Center at University Park. Neuroscience Research Days is sponsored by Penn State Neuroscience Institute in conjunction with the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience.

Center for Neural Engineering

• Steven J. Schiff Director
• Bruce J. Gluckman Associate Director
• Corina Drapaca, Assistant Professor, Engineering Sciences and Mechanics
• Faculty Positions in Neural Engineering

———————————————————————————————— Fall 2009 Schedule

Neural engineering is a discipline that uses engineering techniques to understand, repair, replace, enhance, or treat the diseases of neural systems. Neural engineers are uniquely qualified to solve design problems at the interface of living neural tissue and non-living constructs.

See June, 2008 article at Technology Review

New Neural Engineering Track in the Engineering Sciences and Mechanics Ph.D. Program

Penn State College of Medicine MD-PhD Program and Engineering Sciences and Mechanics

ESM Schedule

Neural Engineering: Fundamentals of Interfacing with Brain (3) Biophysical basis of neural function, measurable signals, and neural stimulation; fundamentals of hardware-brain interfaces; survey of modern applications. Fall 2008: ESC597D

Neural Control Engineering (3) Principles of nonlinear Kalman filtering for state estimation and controlof neural systems including single neurons, networks, cortex, Parkinson's disease

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI): Translate Thought into Action (3) Extensive advances have been made within the last decade to translate measurements of brain activity for prosthetic output. This course, targeted to engineering and science students, will introduce this field through hands-on experiments and design projects. We will cover an introduction to electroenephalogram (EEG) recording and interpretation, applied signal processing, discrimination and classification, and control programming. Students will apply these tools to implement their own BCI projects. This is a laboratory class, with groups of students working to record and analyze each other’s EEG.

NeuroEthics and NeuroLaw (1) (Colisted with STS597A) This course explores the ethical and legal implications of recent developments in neuroscience, and their current and potential ap-plications. Topics will include the use of brain imaging for lie de-tection and counterterrorism, deep brain stimulation, cognitive en-hancement and the implications of recent work in neuroscience for questions of morality, criminal responsibility and conscious-ness (including the potential rehabilitation of patients long-assumed to have been in permanent vegetative states). This is an interdisciplinary class for graduate students from philosophy, psy-chology and neuroscience (among others) as well as law students. The course is a 1 credit half-semester course. However, 2 addi-tional credits of independent study will also be offered to students who wish to write a research paper on a relevant topic with the agreement of the instructor and the student’s home department.

Weekly seminar courses/meetings to review current literature in integrated systems neural engineering. Topics vary with to participants interests and current publications. Available for participation and/or graduate course credit. Each meeting, one participant presents a pre-determined article for which the group has prepared, and the group discusses the findings, context and background.

1 hour Graduate Credit is based on:

• 25% participation (regularly prepared by reading papers and participates in discussion)
• 35% short write ups (7 times, prepare ~1 page summary of paper and discussion on papers they did not present)
• 40% presentation – prepare and present 2 articles

Integrated Systems Neural Engineering (1) Seminar to review current literature in integrated systems neural engineering. Topics vary with to participants interests and current publications, but may include topics in signal processing, models and theory of seizure dynamics, experiments to understand neural activity during behavior and processing, instrumentation and materials for interfacing with brain.

Brain Computer Interface JC (1) Seminar Course to review current literature in Brain Computer Interfaces. Topics vary with participants' interests and current publications, but can include both invasive and non-invasive (EEG) based BCIs, signal processing and control theory, etc. Recent literature in BCI will be reviewed and research ideas will be generated through presentations and discussion.

Cellular Neural Engineering (1) Seminar to review current literature in Cellular and Network Neuroscience. Topics vary with participants' interests and current publications, but can include cellular network measurements and computational modeling, measurement technology including electrical, optical, and fluorescent imaging, etc.

NeuroMechanics (1) Discussion of current literature on the mechanics and structure of brain with a special emphasis on modeling deformation, diffusion, and electromagnetics.

Advanced Neural Control Eng (1)Advanced Topics in Neural Control Engineering (1) Intersection of control theory w/neuroscience.

The Penn State Center for Neural Engineering is a university-wide Center, bridging the campuses and Colleges of Engineering and Science at University Park, with the College of Medicine at Hershey. It is housed within facilities of the Department of Neurosurgery and the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics.

The Center is positioned to facilitate and enable collaboration between faculty from the Huck Institutes for the Life Sciences, Materials Research, and Neuroscience Institutes at Penn State, and forms a physical conduit for faculty and students from across the Engineering Departments, the Integrative Biosciences Neuroscience Program, Physics, Mathematics, and Biology, as well as trainees and faculty from Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Psychiatry. The Center has resident core faculty, with a considerable number of faculty Affiliates drawn from University Park and Hershey.

The Center enables the successful conduct of interdisciplinary research and acquisition of funding for projects that individual Penn State scientists could not perform on their own…

Detailed description of the Center for Neural Engineering

Penn State Medicine Magazine Article Winter 2006

Engineering the Brain, Materials Research Institute Bulletin, Fall 2007

With support from a Grace Woodward Grant for Collaborative Research in Engineering and Medicine, we are developing active collaborations with scientists and physicians working on improving the diagnosis and treatment of neurosurgical diseases in East Africa.

• Madineh Sedigh-Sarvestani
  • ESM Today
    First Place
  • International Workshop on Seizure Prediction, June 4-7, 2009
    “ Using Polarizing Low-Frequency Electric Field Modulation to Probe Preseizure Dynamics”
    Best Clinical Poster

• Dana Lynn Andre
  • PSU Graduate Exhibition
    “Mechanisms Determining Safety and Performance of Brain Stimulation Electrodes.”
    third place poster, Engineering category

• Fall 2009 | Spring 2009 | Fall 2008 | Spring 2008 | Fall 2007 | Spring 07 |

• Fall 2008 | Spring 2008 | Fall 2007 | Spring 07

Faculty | Current Trainees | Center for Neural Engineering Former Trainees