The NIMH Director’s Innovation Speaker Series: Neural Decoding and Control of Multiscale Brain Networks to Treat Mood Disorders and Beyond

Sponsor(s): NIMH Division of Extramural Activities

Location: Neuroscience Center
Conference Room C
6001 Executive Boulevard
Bethesda, MD
WebEx

In her lecture, Dr. Shanechi will first discuss recent work on modeling, decoding, and controlling multisite human brain activity underlying mood states. She will then present a multiscale dynamical modeling framework that allows researchers to decode mood variations and identify brain sites that are most predictive of mood. She will also describe how to develop a system identification approach to characterize brain network dynamics (output) in response to electrical stimulation (input) and enable closed-loop control of brain activity. Finally, she will demonstrate that this multiscale framework can identify a unified low-dimensional latent state from hybrid spike-field activity, allowing it to combine information about a brain state from multiple scales of activity and model their different time-scales and statistical profiles. These models, decoders, and controllers could facilitate future closed-loop therapies for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and help probe neural circuits.

Maryam M. Shanechi is Assistant Professor and Viterbi Early Career Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC). She is also a faculty member in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and Biomedical Engineering at USC. She received her B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto in 2004 and her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006 and 2011, respectively. She held postdoctoral positions at Harvard Medical School and University of California, Berkeley from 2011-2013. She directs the Neural Systems Engineering Lab at USC. Her research is focused on developing closed-loop neurotechnologies through mathematical decoding and control of brain networks to treat neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. She is the recipient of various awards including the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award, the MIT Technology Review’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35 (TR35), the Popular Science Brilliant 10, an Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator award.

Registration and Parking

This event is open without prior registration to all National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff and the public. Parking is available at a nominal fee. A government-issued photo identification card (such as an NIH ID or driver's license) is required to enter the building. The audio of this event will be available over WebEx.

Background

The NIMH Director’s Innovation Speaker Series was started to encourage broad, interdisciplinary thinking in the development of scientific initiatives and programs, and to press for theoretical leaps in science over the continuation of incremental thinking. Innovation speakers are encouraged to describe their work from the perspective of breaking through existing boundaries and developing successful new ideas, as well as working outside their initial area of expertise in ways that have pushed their fields forward. We encourage discussions of the meaning of innovation, creativity, breakthroughs, and paradigm-shifting.   

More Information

WEB EX

Meeting number: 621 521 377

Meeting password: INNOVSHAN

https://nih.webex.com/nih/j.php?MTID=m507d5e8aa9e442f8d09ebab071c58324 

Video address: Dial 621521377@nih.webex.com You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number.

Audio connection: 1-650-479-3208 Call-in toll number (US/Canada)

Sign Language Interpreters will be provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations to participate in this program should contact Dawn Smith 301-451-3957 and/or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).