ECE Research Seminar Series

Description 

Please join the ECE Department as we welcome guest speaker Dr. Maryam M. Shanechi to present at our Research Seminar. Dr. Shanechi will speak on her research, "Neural Decoding and Control of Multiscale Brain Networks: From Motor to Mood." 

ABSTRACT

In this talk, I first discuss our recent work on modeling, decoding, and controlling multisite human brain activity underlying mood states. I present a multiscale dynamical modeling framework that allows us, for the first time, to decode mood variations from intracranial brain activity and identify brain sites that are most predictive of mood. I then develop a system identification approach that can predict large-scale brain network dynamics (output) in response to electrical stimulation (input) to enable closed-loop control of brain activity. Finally, I demonstrate that our modeling framework can uncover multiscale neural dynamics from hybrid spike-field activity in monkeys performing unconstrained movements and can further combine information 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.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. 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 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 MIT in 2006 and 2011, respectively. She held postdoctoralpositions at Harvard Medical School and at UC Berkeley from 2011-2013.

Dr. Shanechi 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 NSF CAREER Award, the MIT Technology Review’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35 (TR35), the Popular Science Brilliant 10, an ARO multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) award, and the ONR Young investigator award.

Host: Jafar Saniie, Filmer Endowed Chair Professor, Department Chair

If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact the ECE department at 312-567-3700 or ece@iit.edu.