Neural and Biomedical Engineering
Courses:
-
ECEN 4831, Brains, Minds,
and Computers
ECEN 4821, Neural Systems and Physiological Control
ECEN 4811, Signals and Functional Brain Imaging
ECEN 4xx1, Special Topics in BME (e.g., Bioelectromagnetics)
Faculty Advisors
The roots of electrical engineering and neuroscience both go back to the late 18th century when scientific debates as to the fundamental nature of electricity and its role in the neural control of muscle activity were raging. For example, the Italian physiologist and anatomist Luigi Galvani built a sensitive device (subsequently known as a Galvanometer) and used it, he claimed, to detect electrical activity in active frog muscles. His fellow Italian, physicist Alessandro Volta, however, disputed this and suggested instead that the electrical potentials (subsequently known as voltages) that Galvani registered were due to the interface of metal wires with the muscle tissue. To prove his point Volta showed that one could generate voltages simply by interfacing metal plates with salt solutions, and in so doing he invented the battery! History would prove that both Galvani and Volta were correct in their own context and ever since progress in electrical and neural sciences have been intrinsically linked.
Today, this strong linkage between ECE and Neural Sciences has re-emerged as a field called Neural Engineering (or, some say, Neurotechnology) and it is well represented in the course offerings open to junior and senior (as well as first-year graduate) ECE students. It is also comprises the major didactic component of the broader program in Biomedical Engineering (BME) that has been available, in several forms, to ECE students for over 20 years.
BME currently exists as an undergraduate ECE option wherein elective credit is awarded for a full year of biology (and a second semester of chemistry) if the student completes two semesters of the BME (neural and otherwise) electives listed above. This BME option is particularly attractive to premedical students or others who plan to pursue graduate studies (and/or careers) in BME or various biomedical sciences. The NE track however, would not subsume, or require, any previous coursework in biology and would be aimed largely at students who are pursuing the NE track in the context of an ECE education and career trajectory. The courses listed above, which can fulfill either (or both) the NE track and the BME option, are designed to be comprehensible to engineering students with no prior biological background.
Representative Technical and Scientific Problem Areas
- Measurements of biomedically important signals
- Algorithms for biomedical signal processing and display
- Technologies for imaging body anatomy (MRI, CAT, etc.)
- Technologies for imaging neuroelectric activity patterns (FMRI, etc.)
- Methods for studying the molecular and cellular basis of bioelectrical phenomena
- Applying control theory and signal flow concepts to physiological systems. Quantifying and understanding the biological effects of electromagnetic fields.
- Modeling the genesis and propagation of neuromagnetic fields.
- Improving neurosurgical techniques such as deep brain stimulation.
- Improved diagnoses and treatment for cardiac, vascular, and pulmonary diseases.
- Improved diagnoses and treatment for neural diseases.
- Development of assistive devices for cognitive disabilities
- Development of brain controlled prostheses for disabled patients.
- Refinement of "artificial intelligence" to be more like actual cognitive function.
