neuroking says:

Misha is uber-awesome. Glad to see he is contributing to one of my favorite blogs. And that Donoghue Lab has some top notch people (because I'm in it! :P )

Jake Young says:

Hi guys,

This is Jake Young from Pure Pedantry at Scienceblogs.com.

Can I ask you a weird question since you both have experience with the Donoghue lab? I saw Michael Black give a talk down here at Mount Sinai and thought that this whole implant business is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

I am interested -- once I finish my MD-PhD -- in going into that area, but all my previous experience is in the substantially less math intensive discipline of molecular neurobiology. Do you have any suggestions about how I could go about getting the math and engineering experience necessary to work with these folks? What level of mathematical acumen is generally expected?

Any help you could give me would be appreciated.

Anyway, I love that stuff so I looking forward to your posts.

Jake Young

mijail says:

hi Jake and Neuroking,
Jake,
If you have the opportunity to take any engineering courses that involve lab work (such as circuit design), or even intro electrical engineering courses, that would help; as for math, the areas that neuroprosthetic decoding rely on most are statistics and pattern recognition- many algorithms are shared with data mining or artificial vision, for example. The website for Michael Black's courses on brain-computer interfaces cite many useful references- if you work your way through some of those papers you will identify what areas of math you are familiar or not familiar with and then can find either math textbook references or classes to take.
I myself have found that as MD-PhD students we have to avail ourselves of the fact that there is just too much to learn out there, we have to try our best to gain expertise in one area, and broader but less sophisticated knowledge in a wider range. We have to know enough to talk to our colleagues in other fields, but short of brain memory chip augmentation, we're not going to master all those fields.
I find I only have the attention to study what I am really interested in- if you love molecular biology then I assure you there are ways to integrate that into neuroprosthetics. The Andara oscillating field generator and other ideas from Ben Borgens lab at Purdue is an excellent example of that, merging basic neural membrane phospholipid biology with electromagnetism, emergency medicine and clinical neurology of spinal cord and brain injury treatment.
If neurology follows the track of cardiology in becoming more interventional, then you can start brainstorming: what is the neural equivalent of a drug eluting stent? By equivalent I don't mean literally (cerebral vessels are likely too small for drug eluting systems to work anyway to prevent restenosis of regrowing endothelium) but conceptually- how could electrode arrays, microwires, depth electrodes invasively, or rTMS, dTCS, neurofeedback of EEG or fMRI noninvasively, all be integrated with molecular biology approaches? Not just of new meds (perhaps that take on different conformations in electrical fields?) but 'smart' contrast agents, drug delivery etc. Another example would be combined multielectrode microfluidic arrays that combine electrical recording/stimulation with ultrafocal drug delivery.
Email me if you have more questions,

Misha

Dr Charles Parker says:

Notes to Misha and the other comment folk in this post:

Thanks for a super site, will be adding it to mine for reference, and must read Mind Hacks ASAP to catch up with your perspectives.

Even tho Amen [www.amenclinics.com] is considered a "charlatan" by the academics, such as Joe Biederman [comments on my site] he has demonstrated clinically useful information with SPECT imaging, which all of you would likely enjoy using as a tool in the office. Yes, Amen is flamboyant, and does differ quite disrespectfully at times with traditional psychiatric evaluation procedures. And "Ring of Fire?" - just don't see that as a useful addition to the nomenclature. And, yes, SPECT imaging does not replace a good clinical review, only adds more useful information.

On the other hand, having said all of that, I have personally witnessed repeatable, predictable clinical results with the use of SPECT imaging. How does 85% accuracy on a a bad day sound? -Often could see specifics in brain function and have accurate clinical conclusions absent a history [not that we didn't take a history, but some fine points are missed in the careful 4 hr evaluation prior to the scan review]. SPECT could be added to your list above regarding interesting neurophysiologic pursuits.

I continue to use SPECT imaging as a means of brain review for difficult cases, find considerable opportunities to review previous SPECT scans/findings by others in Amen Clinics - affirming the point that the scans only provide a portion of the information necessary for creating a comprehensive treatment plan.

Will look forward to following your work,
Thanks
Chuck

przxqgl says:

hi,

my name is salamandir, and a friend of mine suggested that i contact you and/or the mindhacks dot com folks about my experiences. basically, i experienced a brain injury a few years ago, an undiagnosed cerebral arteriovenous malformation that ruptured, and i have been "in recovery" ever since. according to what i have been told by doctors and suchlike, because of the fact that i was a musician and an artist before my injury, i am a lot more "recovered" than most people who suffer the same injury. i would be interested in learning more about the concept of "mind hacks" (i was also a software tester before my injury, but have more or less given that up since my injury, to follow my first love, which is music and art), and if you or the mindhacks dot com folks have any recommendations for how i can accelerate my healing process.