Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016 - (Page 20)

STUDYING OUR BRAINS & HOW WE USE THEM Whether they're investigating the mechanisms of the physical brain or exploring operations of the mind, graduate students in brain and cognitive sciences have the opportunity to advance our understanding of how the brain works while trying out nextgeneration technologies and testing new theories. As these four young researchers show, there are many ways to study the mind and brain-and potential applications that can improve lives, health systems, and even businesses. Neural Engineering ISTOCK.COM/JUMPEESTUDIO by Kyle Rupp The brain is responsible for every thought you think, every emotion you feel, and every memory you recall. It plays a critical role in processing and interpreting input from all of your senses as well as controlling and executing virtually all of your movements. And somehow, in ways that are not understood, it weaves all of these disparate strands of experience into a unified construct called consciousness. Yet despite its central role in the human experience, we know surprisingly little about the brain due to its complexity and the challenges involved in recording from it. These are the thoughts that inspired me to pursue graduate study in a field related to the neurosciences. With an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering, a specialty in neural engineering seemed like a perfect fit, as it would allow me to explore and make contributions in neuroscience while focusing on developing engineered systems. I was specifically drawn to the burgeoning field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which are systems that attempt to interface directly with the brain, record its activity, interpret intent from this activity, and control an output device such as a robotic arm or speech output device. My specific research involves developing a speech BCI that interprets the word meaning of a person's intended speech from their brain activity. For example, we know intuitively that the words "cat" and "dog" are similar to each other, while "cat" and "truck" are less related in meaning. The closeness of those relationships can be characterized logically by asking a series of categorical yes-or-no questions, such as "Is it alive?" or "Is it made of metal?" Words that are similar in meaning in these categorical ways have similar patterns of brain activity in response to these questions. To determine the neural activity associated with these attributes, we record subjects' neural activity while they view and name images of objects. As you would imagine, we can't just insert electrodes 20 imagine in the brains of healthy individuals. But we have been able to do extended recordings from epileptic patients who have had a grid of electrodes surgically placed directly on the surface of their brains (a diagnostic procedure done to locate the brain area responsible for their seizures). While these patients are in the hospital, many of them generously volunteer to participate in our research, and we record neural data directly from this same electrocorticography grid. Once the data is collected, we investigate the relationships between these neural recordings and the semantic questions. When we find these relationships, we can then use them to predict, or "decode," a new image that the subject is naming. This is the key step for a BCI: to be able to predict the subject's intended word directly from their neural data. This research is important for several reasons. First, the successful development of a speech BCI would benefit people who lose the ability to speak due to deterioration of the nerves or muscles that control speech. For example, patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, often experience this debilitating condition (Stephen Hawking being one of the most notable examples). While current technology allows communication, it is much slower than what a speech BCI may be able to achieve. Second, the results from this research may provide insights into the way we produce speech, or even thoughts, about different categories of words. This may one day help doctors better understand and diagnose conditions where patients lose their semantic memory. And for me personally, this research has provided an incredible opportunity to study one of the countless functions that the brain performs, which has been its own reward. Kyle Rupp earned a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Purdue University and is currently a Ph.D. student in the biomedical engineering program at Johns Hopkins University. In his free time, Kyle enjoys traveling, cooking, golfing, and playing and watching football. May/June 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016

Big Picture
In My Own Words Karl Deisseroth, Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry, Stanford University
Mind Brain Philosophy and neuroscience at CTY
A Meeting of the Minds at the National Brain Bee
Mind over Matter Overcoming communication barriers via technology
A Fish of a Different Color My neuroscience internship
Immersed in Brain Science Summer research at Rockefeller University
Brain Training Four graduate students share their research
Prime Time for Brain Science Exciting new findings, from brain maps to mindfulness
Making the Connection Teaching kids about mind, media, and health
Selected Opportunities and Resources
Pitch Perfect The lure of rugby
My Stress-Free Adventure Scuba, sailing, and discovery
Off the Shelf Review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options Interview with neuropsychologist

Lisa Jacobson

One Step Ahead Ten commandments for college success
Planning Ahead for College Can your dream school become a reality?
Students Review New York University
Creative Minds Imagine Fiction contest winners
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games
Mind + Brain Philosophy and neuroscience at CTY

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2016