Dr. Leigh Hochberg, pioneer in brain-computer technology, receives 2022 VA Magnuson Award

Dr. Leigh Hochberg, pioneer in brain-computer technology, receives 2022 VA Magnuson Award

Leigh Hochberg, M.D., Ph.D., FAAN, FANA, director of the VA Centre for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology (CfNN), has acquired the 2022 VA Paul B. Magnuson Award for his perform to make improvements to the lives of Veterans and many others who working experience stroke, ALS, spinal wire injuries and neurological illness. The Magnuson Award recognizes excellent accomplishment in VA rehabilitation analysis.

Hochberg and his colleagues at CfNN are building chopping-edge systems to guide Veterans with paralysis to navigate their environments and converse with other individuals. Hochberg’s investigation plan brings together engineering, neuroscience, and scientific drugs to design new technologies to assistance persons with neurological damage or disease stay a fuller existence. (Caution: Investigational System. Confined by federal regulation to investigational use.)

Dr. Leigh Hochberg

Dr. Leigh Hochberg

Exams brain-pc interfaces

Hochberg is a researcher at the Providence VA Professional medical Center in Rhode Island, with far more than 17 years’ abilities. He is director of the BrainGate scientific trials – executed by major laboratories in neuroscience and neuroengineering – which are focused on establishing and testing intracortical mind-laptop or computer interfaces (BCI).

In 2006, Hochberg posted groundbreaking effects from the to start with two members in the BrainGate scientific demo. He and his colleagues shown that people with cervical spinal twine personal injury could command a laptop or computer cursor or robotic arm applying their brain activity alone. Investigators implanted electrodes in participants’ motor cortex to transmit neural impulses to a laptop or computer, letting the individuals to control external units just by contemplating about the motion of their have hand.

“This breakthrough in human neuroscience established the stage for intracortical BCI research and highlighted the likely to aid people with impairments of communication and mobility,” notes Dr. Krishna Shenoy, director of the Neural Prosthetic Methods Lab at Stanford University.

*Listen to Dr. Hochberg and a colleague describe how the investigational BrainGate method is effective.

A typing pace of 90 characters for each minute

In 2021, the BrainGate crew at Stanford and the Howard Hughes Clinical Institute shown an intracortical BCI that decoded mind activity and exhibited the meant handwriting of a examine participant who was unable to use his palms. The participant attained a typing velocity of 90 people per minute, with 94{5376dfc28cf0a7990a1dde1ec4d231557d3d9e6448247a9e5e61bb9e48b1de73} accuracy. The study, revealed in “Nature,” was acknowledged internationally as a breakthrough in the pace and adaptability designed doable by way of BCI-enabled communication.

*Enjoy a movie demonstrating BCI-enabled handwriting by a BrainGate study participant.

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