Projects
A new generation of flexible high resolution neural electronic interfaces. KU Leuven
SCATMAN : Stroke CAvities Treatment Mechanism with Active Neural interfaces KU Leuven
Cerebrovascular accident (stroke) is the second leading cause of chronic disability and death. New
strokes affect 10.3 million people per year worldwide. The amount of stroke survivors is
increasing, but many remain with severe post-traumatic symptoms. Hence, stroke is a major
economic burden, with a cost of around 45 billion € in Europe in 2017 alone. Only 44% of this cost
is due to the initial treatment, the remaining ...
Signal processing algorithms for attention decoding of brain responses to natural stimuli in brain-computer interfaces KU Leuven
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) enable the human brain to interact with machines, opening doors to various high-impact applications. However, most experimental BCI paradigms require the user to concentrate on synthetic and repeated stimuli, inducing fatigue and interfering with natural behavior. This unnatural interaction blocks the widespread usage of BCIs in daily-life situations beyond a few niche clinical applications.
In this ...
Towards natural brain-computer interfaces: representation learning for identifying the temporal encoding of realistic video footage in EEG KU Leuven
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) facilitate interaction between the brain and a computer or machine. Electroencephalography (EEG) is by far the most popular non-invasive BCI modality, because it is cheap, mobile, and it has an excellent temporal resolution to track neural responses that are time-locked to a sensory stimulus. However, traditional BCI paradigms heavily rely on synthetic and controlled sensory stimuli and an active participation ...
Decoding speech from the brain using deep neural networks KU Leuven
A growing number of hearing-impaired people benefit from a hearing
aid. Due to the current labour-intensive behavioural diagnostics of
the auditory system, hearing aids are not sufficiently adapted to
individual users, as only a limited number of tests can be conducted
per patient.
To address this, we will develop a new measure of brain activity that
will allow automatic and fine-grained ...
Deep neural networks as a model of speech perception KU Leuven
It has been shown that when speech signals are presented to a person, they can be decoded from the electroencephalogram (EEG) using linear regression. Unfortunately due to the complex and nonlinear nature of the brain, the correlation between the actual and decoded signal are low and highly variable. In this project, we aim to improve this by leveraging deep learning architectures for automatic speech recognition. Firstly (1), we will build ...
Neural dynamics of unresponsive states KU Leuven
Human consciousness fluctuates across a continuum of brain states: from physiological states of conscious wakefulness and sleep, to altered states in general anesthesia and disorders of consciousness (DOC). The traditional way of inferring consciousness based on behavioral responsiveness can fail to reflect the actual brain state. Clinical unresponsiveness does therefore not rule out unconsciousness and additional brain-based tools are needed ...
Synaptrode: neural interfacing at the synapse level KU Leuven
The synaptoprobe is a novel concept probe that could reshape the brain research paradigm for neuroscientists everywhere. The synaptoprobe is designed to make stable and specific connections with pretedermined subpopulations of neurons. Conceptually the synaptoprobe utilizes the unique properties of synaptogenic proteins, immobilized onto electrode surfaces by means of a hydrogel scaffold.
The neural basis of actions towards objects in the primate brain KU Leuven
In our daily life, we continuously plan and execute actions towards objects. We look at things, pick them up and manipulate them. These effortless actions are orchestrated by an extensive network of brain areas in the parietal and frontal cortex. Lesions in these areas leaves patients unable to adequately reach towards and grasp objects. Therefore, the ability to perform actions towards objects is critical for our survival. Although lesion ...