Workshops

Full Day

Two NIH-funded national hubs, NTH (jointly between Johns Hopkins University and Howard University) and CINTA (Massachusetts General Hospital), have launched a series of calls for Neurotechnology projects that seek innovators to address unmet needs for clinical conditions impacted by the nervous system. This workshop will describe this new program for accelerating Neurotechnology translation, ‘deep dive’ review, and pathways for new and traditionally under- represented innovators and will offer innovators opportunities for on-on-one consultations with regulatory and commercialization experts.

Half Day

This workshop will engage members from all areas of the neurotechnology community – from students to PIs, from regulators to CEOs, and investors and other funders, in a review of the current trends and breakthroughs in BCI technology. Presenters include Blackrock Neurotech, Motif Neurotech, Paradromics, Precision Neuroscience, and Synchron. Senior executive representatives from each company will provide their respective visions for a patient-centric future of brain-computer interfaces and how to achieve that vision from a technical perspective.

Half Day

There is an often-overlooked aspect of neural engineering when entering the clinical phase.  Many patients require an MRI scan during the implant period, which is counter indicated for patients with neural implants and carries a higher risk of injury to neural and non-excitatory tissue. The MRI scanner generates strong gradient fields at around 1 kHz and strong radiofrequency (RF) fields at either 64 MHz (1.5T) and 128 MHz (3T). The fields can generate voltages at implants that neurons can perceive as unintended stimulations and can also create localized heating leading to potential tissue damage. Of the approximately 40 million MRI scans performed annually in the US, 100 cases of injuries are reported in the FDA Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database. Close to 5% of all subjects scanned by MRI have medical implants. In this workshop, we will introduce the standards for neural implants used for MRI labeling, applicable to all clinical stages of neural implants. This affects implanted brain–computer interface (BCI) systems, deep brain stimulations systems, spinal cord and sacral nerve stimulation systems among others.  These standards are involving, consequently, MRI labeling is changing. Researchers across different disciplines will discuss the current state of MRI safety testing, FDA labelling and needs. 

Half Day

Different Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI) have been developed in the past few years to restore function or improve the quality of life for people with limb difference and neural disorders. However, there is still a long way ahead to improve the interaction between the machine and the human. For instance, sensory feedback is a fundamental part of humans’ interaction with the environment and such feedback is currently missing in the commercial interfaces. To this end, researchers have been investigating different technologies to improve human and machine interactions through machine-tobrain interfaces (MBIs), paving the way to a new generation of interfaces with closed-loop capabilities.

Half Day

For many years now, implanted electrode arrays of different make and material are designed and used to record from and stimulate into the brain. Despite terrific progress, most of these implants do not find their way into truly longterm use, not to mentioned into standard clinical procedures. In order to investigate brain's complex response towards these foreign bodies neuroengineers have too long limited themselves to microscopy of brain tissue representing the implant’s impact by a mere handful of markers.