Cognitive neuro-prosthetics: from virtual limbs and avatars to robotic chairs

Prof. Olaf Blanke
Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

Short biography

Olaf Blanke pioneered the neuroscientific study of human self-consciousness and subjectivity by using a broad range of methods such as the neuropsychology and electrophysiology of self-consciousness in neurological disease as well as brain imaging in healthy subjects. His main interest at present is the development of a data-driven neuroscientific theory of self-consciousness and subjectivity. Another main line of research concerns balance and body perception, and their application to engineering-based technologies such as virtual reality, robotics, and neuro-rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation robotics – closing the gap between expectation and current clinical performance

Prof. W. Zev Rymer
Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Physiology, and Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Sensory Motor Performance Program, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA

Short biography

W. Zev Rymer (M'94) received the M.B.B.S. degree from Melbourne University, Australia, in 1962. After residency training in internal medicine and neurology, he returned to graduate training and received the Ph.D. degree in neurophysiology from Monash University, Australia.
After postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, MD, he became an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Physiology at the State University of New York, Syracuse. In 1978, he became an Assistant Professor of Physiology at Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL. He now holds the John G. Searle Chair in Rehabilitation Research and is Vice President for Research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, while also holding appointments as Professor of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University and at Hines VA, Hines, IL. He is also Director of the Medical Biomechanics Program at Northwestern University Medical School. His laboratory receives support from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education (NIDRR), and the Veterans Administration.

The future of neurorehabilitaiton: best practice is theoretically inspired, grounded in science and patient-centered

Prof. Carolee Winstein
Research and Motor Behavior and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

Short biography

Carolee J. Winstein, PhD, PT, FAPTA is professor of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy and directs the Motor Behavior and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Neurology, USC Keck School of Medicine. She is best known for work concerned with the functional neural and behavioral basis of motor control and learning and its relationship to neurorehabilitation. She has published extensively on scientifically derived neurorehabilitation approaches to enhance recovery and repair after adult onset stroke. Winstein is principal investigator (PI) for the first clinical research network, PTClinResNet, funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy; she is Co-PI of the first National Institutes of Health (NIH) phase III Multi-site Randomized Control Trial of a rehabilitation intervention for upper extremity recovery in stroke, Extremity Constraint-Induced Therapy Evaluation (EXCITE); she is PI for an individual investigator NIH funded grant, Brain and Behavioral Correlates of Arm Rehabilitation after Stroke, a companion to EXCITE; and Co-PI of a NIH roadmap planning and exploratory project, the Interdisciplinary Study of Neuroplasticity and Stroke Rehabilitation (ISNSR). In 2005, she was appointed to the National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research (NABMRR) of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the NIH. Recent research efforts that provide critical background and experience for the development of innovative approaches in neurorehabilitation include: 1) feasibility of Novel Virtual Environments and Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (NIH Phase I STTR), 2) Safety and Effectiveness of Cortical Stimulation in the Treatment of Upper Extremity Hemiparesis (Northstar Neuroscience, Inc.). Two ongoing large-scale funded collaborations include the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center - "Optimizing Participation through Technology (OPTT)" and NIH (NINDS, NICHD) Interdisciplinary Comprehensive Arm Rehabilitation Evaluation (ICARE) Stroke Initiative, a Multi-Center phase III Randomized control Trial, Interdisciplinary Comprehensive Arm Rehabilitation Evaluation (ICARE).

TUM Agetech: A framework for pervasive medical devices for elderly

Prof. Tim Lüth
Institute for Micro Technology and Medical Device Technology, Technical University of Munich, Germany

Short biography

Tim C. Lueth was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1965. He received his degree in electrical engineering from the Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany in 1989. Afterwards, he received the Ph.D. degree in robotics and habilitation in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe in 1993 and 1997, respectively. In 1994-1995, he was a Visiting Researcher at the MITI-AIST Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan. In 1997, Lueth became Professor for surgical navigation and robotics at the medical school Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin of the Humboldt University at Berlin. In 2001, he became the Director for Mechatronic Medical Technology at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK. Since 2005, Lueth works as Professor, Chair, and Director of the Institute of Micro Technology and Medical Device Technology of the University of Technology, Munich. In 2006, he received a professor status at the University of Toronto, Canada. The European Patent Office elected him in 2007 as TOP-3 inventor in the category "lifetime achievement" for his patent activities in the area of surgical robotics and navigation. He received several national and international awards for his research on medical devices. In 2010, Lueth became elected Member of "acatech," by the German National Academy for Science and Technology. Current research topics are Assistant Systems for an Aging Society, Robotics, Automation, Navigation for Surgery, and Rapid Prototyping of Mechatronics Systems.

Neuromuscular model of human walking: implication on prosthetic leg design

Prof. Hugh Herr
Biomechatronics group, Program in Media Arts and Sciences and Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Short biography

Hugh Herr is pioneering new research directions for a new class of biohybrid, "smart" prostheses; these devices are accelerating the merging of body and machine, improving the lives of amputees and other physically challenged individuals, and amplifying the endurance and strength of everyone. Herr has employed cross-bridge models of skeletal muscle to the design and optimization of a new class of human-powered mechanisms that amplify endurance for cyclic anaerobic activities. He has also built elastic shoes that increase aerobic endurance in walking and running. In the field of human rehabilitation, Herr's group has developed gait adaptive knee prostheses for transfemoral amputees and variable impedance ankle-foot orthoses for patients suffering from drop foot, a gait pathology caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis. Herr received his BA in physics from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University. Prior to coming to the Media Lab, Herr was assistant professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School.

Robotic and neuroprosthetic systems for neurorehabilitation after spinal cord injury

Grégoire Courtine
Experimental Neurorehabilitation Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Short biography

Prof. Dr. Grégoire Courtine was originally trained in Mathematics and Physics, but received his PhD degree in Experimental Medicine from the University of Pavia, Italy, in 2003. From 2004-2007, he held a Post-doctoral Fellow position at the Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, under the supervision of Dr. Reggie Edgerton. In 2008, he established his own research laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he also is a member of the Rehabilitation Initiative and Technology Platform Zurich (RITZ). The main focus of the lab includes the development and use of neuroprosthetic systems, robotic interfaces, pharmacological cocktails, neuroregenerative therapies, and neurorehabilitation interventions to promote the recovery of motor functions after neurological impairments such as spinal cord injury or stroke. His laboratory addresses a remarkably diversified range of research paradigms in mice, rats, cats, monkeys, and humans. In the past four years, he published several articles in Nature Neuroscience and Nature Medicine, which were discussed in national and international press extensively. He received numerous honors and awards such as the 2007 Chancellor's award for excellence in post-doctoral research from UCLA and the 2009 Schellenberg Prize for Research that was awarded by the International Foundation of Research in Paraplegia.