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Date March 15, 2025
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Brown hosts National Academy of Engineering symposium on neurotechnology, neural engineering

The symposium focused on the ways in which engineering research can be brought to bear in better understanding the nervous system and treating injury and disease.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Top researchers from across the Northeast and beyond gathered in Brown University’s Engineering Research Center on Friday, March 14, for a National Academy of Engineering (NAE) regional meeting and symposium. 

The symposium, titled “Hacking the Nervous System: The convergence of data, devices and decision-making,” featured prominent researchers from Brown and other institutions discussing technology aimed at understanding how the nervous system works, and how engineering can be used to treat neurological disease and injury. 

The NAE holds four such regional meetings on varying topics each year at top research institutions nationwide. This was the first time Brown has hosted a symposium. 

In her introductory remarks, Tejal Desai, dean of Brown’s School of Engineering, stressed the importance of seeking a diversity of perspectives in addressing complex challenges like those in neural engineering.

“Brown is at the forefront of transformative research that's addressing some of society's most pressing problems,” said Desai, who is an elected member of the NAE. “I can tell you there is not a single problem in today's world that is solved from a single discipline or a single perspective. And I think what you'll see today is that particularly in areas like neuroengineering and hacking the nervous system, we will need that multidisciplinary approach.”

In one of two keynote presentations, Brown Professor of Engineering Leigh Hochberg shared recent work done by BrainGate, a research collaboration that develops devices to restore people’s ability to move and communicate after injury or illness affecting the brain or spinal cord. The work involves tiny implantable electrode arrays that sense electrical activity within the brain. Those signals are then decoded by a computer and used to drive the movement of external devices like robotic arms. 

Hochberg shared recent results from the BrainGate clinical trial, including a study in which participants with ALS were able to directly control tablet computers just by thinking about using their hand to point and click. In other clinical work, a trial participant who could not speak clearly due to ALS was able to generate speech using a brain-computer interface that detected his attempt to move his muscles and talk. 

Ultimately, Hochberg said, he'd like to be able to say to patients who are affected by paralysis, “I'm sorry this happened; I know that you're not able to move right now, but there is a technology [that is] able to restore that mobility. That's part of where we hope this field is going.”

In a second keynote, Emery Brown, an anesthesiologist and professor at MIT and Harvard, discussed how the field of anesthesiology could aid in understanding the function of the brain, as well as treating disease. He showed how patterns of brain activity induced by anesthetic drugs sometimes mimic those associated with brain disorders. The potential exists, he says, for techniques from anesthesiology to be used in treatments for psychological disorders like depression.

Other presenters included Haneesh Kesari, an associate professor of engineering at Brown, and Christopher Moore, a professor of neuroscience and associate director of Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science. Kesari’s lab develops systems that estimate the stresses in the brain generated by blows to the head. The goal is to better understand and treat concussions and other brain trauma. Moore works in the field of optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control genetically modified cells. His latest work combines optogenetics with bioluminescence, the chemical process that fireflies and other organisms use to generate light. Among the potential applications of his work is a means of getting therapeutics through the blood-brain barrier to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders. 

A final portion of the symposium focused on combining engineering research with design to create new devices aimed at improving health. Kimani Toussaint, a professor and associate dean of engineering at Brown, described a workshop series held at Brown in 2022 that brought medical experts together with technologists to explore new home health technologies. 

“Health integration is complex,” Toussaint said. “It’s probably the most complex problem I’ve ever worked on. It requires a convergence of expertise, and it requires institutional commitments that will allow new mechanisms for bringing people together.”

Founded in 1964, the NAE is a private, nonprofit institution with over 2,000 elected members in the U.S., including six engineering professors from Brown. Its mission is “to advance the welfare and prosperity of the nation by providing independent advice on matters involving engineering and technology, and by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and public appreciation of engineering.”

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Carney Institute School of Engineering