CIMIT Program: Neurotechnology

What is Neurotechnology?

Neurotechnology is a global industry supported by companies and cutting-edge research in the US, Europe and Asia, including over 800 public and private organizations researching, developing and manufacturing treatments for the nearly 2 billion people suffering form a neurological disease or psychiatric illness.

A multidisciplinary field, neurotechnology integrates drugs, medical devices, biologies, cell-based therapeutics, and diagnostics for the brain and nervous system.

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Neurotechnology

FINDING MORE EFFECTIVE, MINIMALLY-INVASIVE WAYS TO PREVENT, DETECT AND TREAT NEUROLOGIC DISORDERS

One in five Americans suffers from a neurological disease. Epilepsy alone affects four to six million Americans. Many neurological diseases are usually diagnosed in their advanced stages, and treatments tend to be palliative rather than curative, leaving patients debilitated for years. One in three epileptic patients continues to have seizures, which may be fatal or cause serious disability.

New engineering techniques that if coupled to recent discoveries in neuroscience, could dramatically improve patient quality of life. Potential benefits include reversing or ameliorating a variety of neurological diseases and making earlier diagnosis possible.

CIMIT’s Neurotechnology Program is focused on developing novel approaches to diagnosis and treatment that integrate the expanding field of neuroscience with the rapidly evolving technology of engineering.

Projects
Publications
Forum/Events
In The News

FY 2011 - 2008 Neurotechnology Projects
YEAR	PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR	INSTITUTION	PROJECT TITLE
2011	William Anderson	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Memory Alteration through Theta Phase-Locked Electrical Stimulation
2011	Emilio Bizzi	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	A Fully Autonomous Brain-Body Interface for Patients with Neuromuscular Injury or Disease
2011	Shalesh Kaushal	University of Massachusetts Medical School	Low Energy Laser as a Therapeutic for Dry Age-related Macular Degeneration
2011	Yong-Tae Lee	Harvard University	Improving Recovery after Stroke via Electrical Stimulation of Proprioceptors
2011	Alexander Lin	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Neurochemical and Multimodal Biomarkers for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
2011	Lauren O'Donnell	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Diagnosis of diffuse axonal injury using robust tract-based quantification of diffusion tensor imaging
2011	Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Noninvasive, Physiologic Characterization of Cortical Plasticity After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Humans-392
2011	Alexander Rotenberg	Children’s Hospital Boston	A novel application of intranasal Huperzine A in treatment of traumatic brain injury
2011	Peter Warnke	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Physiologically-guided stereotactic radiosurgery in MTLE
2010	Bryan McLaughlin, PhD	Charles Stark Draper Laboratory	An implantable, wireless electrode derivation for chronic EEG recording in epilepsy
2010	Felipe Fregni, MD, PhD, MPH	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Closed loop, detect-and-treat systems for epilepsy
2009	Peter Bergethon, PhD	Boston University	Multi-Optode Probe for Evaluation of Diabetic Neuropathy
2009	Sydney Cash, MD, PhD	Children’s Hospital Boston	Microelectrode Recordings and Advanced Algorithms for Seizure Prediction
2009	Chun Lim, MD, PhD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Augmented reality glasses for the treatment of visuospatial neglect
2009	Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Near-infrared photobiostimulation as a means of neuromodulation in stroke
2009	Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	TDCS - Stroke Recovery
2008	Riccardo Barbieri, MD	Massachusetts General Hospital	A computational tool based on heart beat dynamics to predict apnea episodes in premature infants under vibro-tactile stimulation
2008	Paolo Bonato, PhD	Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital	Enhancing Parkinson’s Control Therapy by Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus via Measures of Motor Response
2008	Felipe Fregni, MD, PhD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Anticonvulsive and Antiepileptic Properties of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in an Animal Seizure Model
2008	Alexandra Golby, MD	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Intracranial Electrophysiology System for the Intraoperative MRI
2008	Joseph Madsen, MD	Children’s Hospital Boston	A Device for Quantification of the Ballistocardiogram (BCG) as a Non-Invasive Measure of Intracranial Dynamics
2008	Nobuyuki Nakajima, MD	Brigham and Women’s Hospital	Real-time electromagnetic navigation for flexible-neuroendoscopy
2008	Trudy Pang, MD	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Initial Clinical Implementation of a Novel, Non-Invasive, Patient-Specific Electrographic Seizure Detection System with Two Outputs: An audible alarm and energized electromagnets for activation of vagus nerve stimulation
2008	Seward Rutkove, MD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Refinement and Application of an Electrical Impedance Probe for Neuromuscular Assessment
2008	Robert Joseph Thomas, MD	Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Cervical Direct Current Carotid Body Stimulation - Preliminary evaluation of a novel method to modulate carotid chemoreflex function for treatment of central and complex sleep apnea
2008	Simon Warfield, PhD	Children’s Hospital Boston	Bayesian Source Imaging of Pediatric Epilepsy
2008	Jonathan Winograd, MD	Massachusetts General Hospital	Design of an Autonomous Brain-Body Interface in the Spinal Cord-Injured Patient
» View all CIMIT-Funded Projects. Contact Haleh Armian, CIMIT Senior Manager Business Development for more information regarding Commercialization Opportunities.

Recent Publications by CIMIT Investigators
INVESTIGATOR/AUTHOR	PUBLICATION	ARTICLE	DATE
Franceschini, M. A.; Thaker, S.; Themelis, G.; Krishnamoorthy, K. K.; Bortfeld, H.; Diamond, S. G.; Boas, D. A.; Arvin, K.; Grant, P. E.	Pediatric Res. 61 (5 Pt 1): 546-51	Assessment of Infant Brain Development with Frequency-Domain Near-Infrared Spectroscopy	2007

Neurotechnology at the CIMIT Forum and Past Events
EVENT	DATE	SPEAKERS	DETAIL
Forum	Jan. 13, 2009	Ed Boyden, PhD: Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Benesse Career Development Prof. of Research in Education, MIT Media Lab Dan Hoch, MD: Neurologist, MGH; Assistant Professor, HMS	Optical Brain Control: Analyzing and Engineering Normal and Pathological Neural Circuit Dynamics Providing Real Care in a Virtual Environment: The Challenges and Potential of Clinical Practice in a Virtual World
Forum	Oct. 14, 2008	Robert Ajemian, PhD: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Laboratory of Emilio Bizzi, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT Jonathan Winograd, MD: Assistant Professor of Surgery, HMS, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, MGH Leigh R. Hochberg, MD, PhD: Associate Professor of Engineering, Brown University; Instructor in Neurology, HMS; Stroke and Neurocritical Care Services, Department of Neurology, MGH, BWH, and Spaulding Rehabilitation, HMS; Rehabilitation Research & Development Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, Providence VAMC	Brain-Machine Interface or Brain-Body Interface? How to Best Exploit the Remarkable Adaptive Competence of the Brain: Presentation One Presentation Two Neural Interface Systems: Turning Thought into Action
Forum: Unraveling the Brain in Trauma and in Health	Sept. 16, 2008	Marilyn F. Kraus, MD; Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Van Wedeen, MD; MGH	The Role of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Traumatic Brain Injury Mapping Brain Connectivity with Diffusion MRI
Forum: The Future of Neurotechnology	May 6, 2008	Zack Lynch, Executive Director, Neurotechnology Industry Organization Steven Schiff, MD, PhD, Penn State	The Neurotechnology Industry: 2008 and Beyond Towards Model Based Control of Epileptic Seizures
Forum: Stroke Prevention and Therapy	Apr. 15, 2008	Michael H. Lev, MD: MGH Javier Romero, MD: MGH	Patient Selection for Novel Stroke Therapy Using Advance Imaging New Perspectives in the Imaging of Carotid Artery Plaque
Forum: Experts Discuss Biological Electronics and Sensors	Oct. 23, 2007	Luke Theogarajan, PhD; MIT Timothy Swager, PhD; MIT	Biological Electronics and Sensors for Medical Applications • Electronic and Ionic Neural Interfaces • Electronic Polymers in Biosensors
CIMIT Summer Education Series 2007	Jul. 31, 2007	John Gabrieli, PhD; MIT Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD; BIDMC, HMS Charles Jennings, PhD; McGovern Institue for Brain Research, MIT Steven Schachter, MD; HMS, BIDMC	Neurotechnology: Translating Basic Discoveries into Clinical Promise • Functional MRI and Clinical Applications
CIMIT Summer Education Series 2007	Jul. 24, 2007	Emilio Bizzi, MD, PhD; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD; HMS, BIDMC Charles Jennings, PhD; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT Steven Schachter, MD, HMS, BIDMC	Neurotechnology: Translating Basic Discoveries into Clinical Promise • Neural Control of Movement and Applications for Stroke Intervention
CIMIT Summer Education Series 2007	Jul. 17, 2007	Steve Schachter, MD; BIDMC, HMS John Guttag, PhD; MIT Charles Jennings, PhD; MIT, McGovern Institute of Neurotechnology	Neurotechnology: Translating Basic Discoveries into Clinical Promise • Decoding Cortical Electrophysiology for the Detection of Seizures
CIMIT Summer Education Series 2007	Jul. 10, 2007	Christopher Moore, PhD; MIT Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD; Brown University, VA, HMS, MGH	Neurotechnology: Translating Basic Discoveries into Clinical Promise • Deciphering Cortical Electrophysiological Signals and their Applications for Brain-Body Interfaces

Neurotechnology News
ARTICLE TITLE	PUBLICATION	DATE
A new medical relationship: Physicians, healers, botanicals	Projo.com	Jan. 3, 2010
Brain Zap Improves Dexterity	Live Science	Oct. 29, 2008
Preemptive Treatment of Seizures by VNS?	Med Gadget: Internet Journal of Emerging Medical Technologies	Sep. 5, 2006
Epilepsy Breakthrough on Horizon	MIT News Office	Aug. 31, 2006

Video: CIMIT Life-Saving Innovation in Early Stage of Trauma.

Program Leader

Steven Schachter, MD
617-667-4460

CIMIT RESPONSIBILITIES
• Chief Academic Officer, CIMIT
• Program Leader, Neurotechnology
• SIte Miner, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

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