Dr Melanie Ecker on conformal soft neural electrodes in the gut-brain axis
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Release Date: 07/18/2022
John Seymour on directional depth arrays and the future of neurosurgery
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is an in Neurosurgery and at where his lab works on electrophysiology studies, biophysics modeling, and applying machine learning models to decoding of neural activity. A major project in our lab is focused on developing a long-term brain-machine interface for the treatment of aphasia or locked-in syndrome. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "Your job as the engineer is to create a high resolution map of a crowd's vocalization during some live event, the rules are, you only get the place, say 10 or 20 devices...
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Andre Mercanzini on revolutionizing Deep Brain Stimulation using small directional probes by Aleva Neuro
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at which has worked in directional Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) device leads for Parkinson's and other diseases. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services Top 3 Takeaways: "We realized during that time that the intervention that could benefit the most from the miniaturization technologies was by far and away, deep brain stimulation." "MEMS allowed us to align every single electrode into its position, have it almost prewired and decrease the amount of touch time that an operator would...
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Vasiliki Giagka on Neural Interface Packaging and why it's the most important
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is an and where she conducts research on the design and fabrication of active neural interfaces. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "Water vapor is not dangerous for neural devices, it will not cause your metals to corrode, as long as it remains in the form of vapor. The moment it condenses into liquid water and you have ions in there, is when corrosion can start, and that is the beginning of the end" Conformal polymer coatings have been implanted in bodies for decades but we lack means to prove upfront the amount of...
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Jacob George on implantable and wearable neurotech research at the University of Utah
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is an assistant professor at the University of Utah where his seeks to augment biological neural networks with artificial neural networks and bionic devices to treat neurological disorders and to further our understanding of neural processing. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "I'm 28 years old. So very young still getting stuff set up and really kickstarting it. The average age that NIH states for someone to get an R01 is somewhere around 47 years old and they really wanna change that. They wanna get people into...
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Ana Maria Porras on inclusive science communication in different languages
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Ana Maria Porras is an working on human-microorganism interactions and science communication especially in different languages. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "Sometimes we see science communication as a way to convince more people to work in STEM but I think it's important beyond that. It's important that you understand the basis of how we do science and why we do science" "We think of science communication as what's happening when people go viral. But you can do a ton of great science communication in...
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Giacomo Valle on working with patients, animals, and computational models for neurotech
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is a post-doc researcher at ETH Zurich working in the to find tools for neurologically disabled amputees and diabetic persons. They look at how to decode from devices and what that would look like for the development of new devices. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "We're working on the sensory feedback restoration in people where there is a sensory loss due to neuropathy. The limbs are there there is sensory loss due to the degeneration and neuropathic degeneration. And then with electrical simulation is possible...
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Jotthe Kannappan on being a Venture Capitalist for minimally invasive medical technologies
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is an associate at which is all about converging robotic systems, digital tools, and clinical needs in search of new ways to understand, diagnose, treat and manage disease. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services Top 3 Takeaways: "It's not about rejection. It's about enabling the best possible fit between an entrepreneur and an investor who is able to who's able to really do what the company needs for them" "The typical things that stand out are really well clearly articulated message again about an unmet medical needs is something that...
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Benjamin Stecher on being a Parkinson's patient advocate
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
runs a blog called the where he talks about his battle with Parkinson's disease. He has been implanted with a Deep Brain Stimulator an is also on the patient advisory board of Rune Labs where he gives them a perspective from the patient's point of view. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: "It got to the point where the Livadopa medication on-off fluctuations were so impairing to my daily life that I had maybe like an hour where I felt normal per day" "But to compare it to the medication now, it's night and day....
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Dr Melanie Ecker on conformal soft neural electrodes in the gut-brain axis
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
is a professor at the focusing on smart polymers for biomedical applications. She has worked on conformal and biocompatible neural devices to study the electrophysiology of the enteric nervous system. ***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools Top 3 Takeaways: The neurons in the gut-brain axis have not been investigated much by neural probes because of the softness of the intestines "The beauty about the intestines is in comparison to the brain, our probes, the electrodes don't need to be that tiny" The key to recruiting lots of good student...
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Dima Gazda and the prosthetic arm that learns with you by Esper Bionics
Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions
Dima Gazda is the CEO and founder of which is a company that makes a prosthetic arm that gains abilities overtime with you. They plan to use this 'simple' neurotech solution to springboard them solve other larger neurotech problems. ***This podcast is sponsored by Iris Biomedical, check out their Neurotech Startup Services Top 3 Takeaways: We are building an ecosystem and will be building more products in addition to the robotic arm. Next will be a better user control system and then a robotic leg A physician can only add about 3000 patient-years of life but an engineer and...
info_outlineDr Melanie Ecker is a professor at the University of North Texas focusing on smart polymers for biomedical applications. She has worked on conformal and biocompatible neural devices to study the electrophysiology of the enteric nervous system.
***This podcast is sponsored by Ripple Neuro, check out their Neuroscience Research Tools here***
Top 3 Takeaways:
- The neurons in the gut-brain axis have not been investigated much by neural probes because of the softness of the intestines
- "The beauty about the intestines is in comparison to the brain, our probes, the electrodes don't need to be that tiny"
- The key to recruiting lots of good student volunteers is to bring donuts to group meetings!
1:00 Do you want to introduce yourself and talk about your work?
2:30 "What are shape memory polymers and how does it relate to neurotechnology?"
4:30 What were you working on in the Voit lab and what are you working on now?
9:30 Sponsorship by Ripple Neuro
10:30 Are traditional neural probes too stiff for the intestines?
17:15 What are the conductive components of the flexible interfaces?
19:15 Do these conductive polymers last long in the body or are they dissolved quickly?
20:45 "If you had unlimited funding, what would you do?"
23:15 Do you have any tips on how to recruit so many students?
24:30 "Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to mention?"