At the upcoming EMBC 2021 we’re excited to present our latest research results from the fields of BCI and DBS. Congratulations to all students involved for getting their hard work published! Stay tuned for final paper links but this year we’ll be presenting two papers:

“Robustness of Beta Desynchronization from Chronically Implanted Cortical Electrodes on Multiple Time Scales” by Tomek Fraczek, Andrew Ko, Howard Chizeck, and Jeffrey Herron. Available here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9629927

“A Platform for Virtual Reality Task Design with Intracranial Electrodes” by Co-first authors Maurice Montag and Courtnie Paschall, along with Jeff Ojemann, Rajesh Rao, and Jeffrey Herron. Available here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9630231

Three papers are being presented at NER 2021 next week detailing ongoing work in the evaluating the sensing capabilities of directional DBS electrodes, stimulation ramp rate testing to support closed-loop DBS studies, and new architectures to support future research tool software development. Congratulations to all the students and collaborators who got their papers accepted to NER 2021!

C. Paschall, L. Levinson, J. Ojemann, A. Ko, J. Herron “Data-Driven Spectral Features of Directional DBS Electrodes and dDBS-ECoG Connectivity”

M. Petrucci, K. Wilkins, G. Orthlieb, Y. Kehnemouyi, J. O’Day, J. Herron, H. Bronte-Stewart “Ramp Rate Evaluation and Configuration for Safe and Tolerable Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation”

B. Roarr, R. Perrone, F. Jamshed, R. Gilron, T. Denison, P. Starr, J. Herron, D. Borton “OMNI: Open Mind Neuromodulation Interface for Accelerated Research and Discovery“

Master’s student Kazi (Sabrina) Sonnet will be presenting her work on classifying essential tremor symptom classification using drawing task data at the IEEE BIBE2020 Conference on Monday, October 26th!

Five papers are going to be presented at EMBC covering ongoing work associated with closed-loop deep brain stimuilation (DBS) for Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor, automated movement disorder symptom assessment techniques using mobile applications, and sleep stage classification based on invasive electrocorticography signals in epilepsy patients. Congratulations to all the students at University of Washington and our collaborators at Stanford who wrote these papers that were accepted to EMBC!

S. Cooper, B. Ferleger, A. Ko, J. Herron, H. Chizeck, “Rebound effect in deep brain stimulation for essential tremor and symptom severity estimation from neural data”

B. Ferleger, K. Sonnet, T. Morriss, A. Ko, H. Chizeck, J. Herron, “A tablet- and mobile-based application for remote diagnosis and analysis of movement disorder symptoms”

S. Sun, L. Jiang, S. Peterson, J. Herron, K. Weaver, A. Ko, J. Ojemann, R. Rao, “Unsupervised Sleep and Wake State Identification in Long-Term Neural Recordings”

J. O’Day, Y. Kehnemouyi, M. Petrucci, R. Anderson, J. Herron, H. Bronte-Stewart, “Demonstration of Kinematic-Based Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation for Mitigating Freezing of Gait in People with Parkinson’s Disease”

M. Petrucci, R. Anderson, J. O’Day, Y. Kehnemouyi, J. Herron, H. Bronte-Stewart, “A Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation Approach for Mitigating Burst Durations in People with Parkinson’s Disease”

A poster detailing work done in collaboration with Dr. Greg Worrell and Dr. Ben Brinkmann at the Mayo Clinic will be presented at the upcoming American Epilepsy Society meeting. The poster, titled “Epilepsy Personal Assistant Device – A Mobile Platform for Brain State, Dense Behavioral and Physiology Tracking, and Controlling Adaptive Stimulation” details work on a chronic monitoring system leveraging the Medtronic Summit System. See the full abstract here.

PhD student Ben Ferleger and undergraduate researcher Sarah Cooper will be at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago this year presenting a poster on some of our recent work using the Activa PC+S. The research project being presented is an investigation into the ‘rebound effect’ whereby essential tremor patients with a deep brain stimulator can have worse-than-normal symptoms immediately following the removal of electrical stimulation. Due to the fact that in future closed-loop DBS  systems may automatically turn on and off stimulation in response to sensed neural biomarkers, the fact that symptoms get worse temporarily with the removal of stimulation needs to inform future algorithm design to ensure effective control of symptoms.

The full SFN Conference Poster information is available here: https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/44957

A paper written with Medtronic colleagues Duane Bourget, Ben Isaacson, and Melanie Goodman-Kaiser will be presented this week at NER 2019. The paper is titled “Research Development Kit Enabling Expanded Spinal Cord Stimulation Research” and included below is the paper’s abstract. Check out the poster if you are there!

Update 6/13/2019: PDF Available on IEEE

Abstract: Neurostimulation is used to treat a variety of neurological diseases. Historically, these implantable neurostimulator systems have relied on providing therapeutic benefit to patients using tonic, or open-loop, stimulation. In this paper, we review the state of the art in current spinal cord stimulation therapy to identify the needs of the field for a new tool to enable new research. We then present an overview of the design and capabilities of the Nexus-I Research Development Kit for investigational human-use research activities for patients who have been implanted with the Model 97715 Intellis neurostimulator.