A group of graduate students studying under Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, have published an account of the 2013 Workshop of Clinical Brain-Neural Machine Interface Systems.
The workshop was held in Houston last February and brought together the world’s leading figures in the area of brain-computer/machine interfaces (BCI/BMI). These technologies could someday revolutionize care and quality of life for those dealing with paralysis, amputation, brain injury and other conditions by allowing them to control everything from robotic exoskeletons to high-tech prosthetics using only their thoughts
The gathering, hosted by University of Houston and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, was designed to make that day come as quickly as possible. BCI/BMI systems are still in the development stage. To bring them from the lab to the clinic, the BCI/BMI community must create a “roadmap” that defines the roles of everyone involved in these efforts, including researchers, regulators, funding agencies and investors. Several working groups that grew out of the conference are now developing sections of the roadmap.
The account of the workshop, co-written by representatives from the National Institute of Health, appears in the most recent issue of IEEE Pulse.