Neural engineering

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Neural Engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field of research that uses engineering techniques to investigate the function and manipulate the behavior of the central or peripheral nervous systems. The field draws heavily on the fields of computational neuroscience, experimental neuroscience, clinical neurology, electrical engineering and signal processing of living neural tissue, and encompasses elements from robotics, computer engineering, tissue engineering, materials science, and nanotechnology.

Prominent goals in the field include restoration and augmentation of human function via direct interactions between the nervous system and artificial devices. Current research is focused on understanding the coding and processing of information in the sensory and motor systems, quantifying how this processing is altered in the pathological state, and how it can be manipulated through interactions with artificial devices including brain-computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics.

As neural engineering is an emerging field, information and research relating to it is comparatively limited, although this is changing rapidly. The first journal specifically devoted to neural engineering started in 2004: The Journal of Neural Engineering, and the first international conference on neural engineering was held in Capri, Italy, in 2003 [1] .

Neural Engineering Labs

• Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing, Columbia University
• USC Center for Neural Engineering
• Neural Engineering Center, Case Western Reserve University
• Neural Engineering Lab, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Neural Engineering Laboratory, University of Michigan at Ann-Arbor
• McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
• Laboratory for Neural Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Neuroengineering Research Lab of the University of Pennsylvania
• Neuroengineering at Johns Hopkins University
• Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried
• Duke Center for Neuroengineering

See also

• Brain-computer interface
• Central nervous system
• Cybernetics
• Cyberware
• Neuroprosthetics