Common Ground: Making Meaning in the Arts and Sciences

 

Interfaces to Nerve and Brain

Greg Clark, Associate Professor,
Director of the Neural Interfaces Track
Department of Bioengineering,
University of Utah

Abstract

Restoring Lost Sensory and Motor Function with Neuronal Prostheses: How to Talk to the Nervous System So It Will Listen, and How to Listen to It When It Talks

Almost unfathomably complex, the nervous system accounts for much of who we are. Consequently, neuronal dysfunction can exact a profound toll on the human condition. Recent technological and conceptual advances are making it increasingly possible to restore sensory, motor, cognitive and even emotional function after nervous system damage or disease. In my presentation, I shall explore how scientists and engineers can “talk to” (stimulate) the nervous system in order to provide it with appropriate information and instructions, and “listen to” (record from) the nervous system in order to understand what the nervous system is trying to say and do. In particular, I shall discuss the use of the 100-channel Utah Electrode Array as a neuroprosthetic interface that may be used to restore vision to the blind, to reanimate paralyzed limbs after spinal cord injury, and to provide natural, intuitive motor control of, and sensory feedback from, an advanced neuroprosthetic arm. An important theme of this CIDAT interdisciplinary lecture series is that both the arts and sciences “use images and metaphors which…allow us to see and feel things that are otherwise passed by unseen and unfelt, and thus enrich our experience of the natural world” (Guy Ashkenazi). My own presentation will illustrate how modern neuroprostheses are making such seeing and feeling not only a metaphor, but a reality.

Bio

Gregory A. Clark, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Director of the Neural Interfaces Track in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Utah.  His current research explores how the nervous system works, and how to fix it when it doesn’t.  His work in neuroprostheses has helped develop strategies for stimulating peripheral nerve to reanimate paralyzed limbs, and has used the Utah Slanted Electrode Array as an interface to an advanced neuroprosthetic arm intended to restore nearly full sensory and motor capabilities.  He is the recipient of a Pew Biomedical Scholar Award and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, as well as several Dean’s letters of commendation for his teaching at the University of Utah.  He has played an active role in Utah’s K-12 chess/math curriculum, and has helped coach several school team and individual Utah state chess champions.  He is a proud winner of The Salt Lake Tribune’s 2007 inaugural Jell-O salad haiku contest.