Brown University Hosts National Academy Of Engineering Symposium

Study in US: Brown University has hosted the National Academy of Engineering symposium on neurotechnology, neural engineering.

Brown University hosted a National Academy of Engineering (NAE) regional meeting and symposium. The symposium brought together the top researchers from across the Northeast and beyond.

The title of the symposium was “Hacking the Nervous System: The convergence of data, devices and decision-making,”.

The event witnessed Brown University researchers and other experts discussing the technology for understanding how engineering can be used to treat neurological injury and disease and how the nervous system works overall.

Tejal Desai, dean of Brown’s School of Engineering commented, “Brown is at the forefront of transformative research that's addressing some of society's most pressing problems. I can tell you there is not a single problem in today's world that is solved from a single discipline or a single perspective. And I think what you'll see today is that particularly in areas like neuroengineering and hacking the nervous system, we will need that multidisciplinary approach.”

Brown Professor of Engineering Leigh Hochberg's presentation shared the recent work of BrainGate which involves implantable electrode arrays to sense electrical activities of the brain which are then decoded by a computer for the movements of external devices like robotic arms.

To the paralysis patients, Hochberg said, “I'm sorry this happened; I know that you're not able to move right now, but there is a technology [that is] able to restore that mobility. That's part of where we hope this field is going.”

Kimani Toussaint, a professor and associate dean of engineering at Brown said, “Health integration is complex. It’s probably the most complex problem I’ve ever worked on. It requires a convergence of expertise, and it requires institutional commitments that will allow new mechanisms for bringing people together.”

What Did World Learn From COVID-19 Pandemic

Brown University's eight scholars studied what were the lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Our experience with COVID-19 was a real-time lesson in health equity. We learned about the importance of addressing social needs and how that impacts people's vulnerability to COVID-19 and their ability to manage resources. Socioeconomic status, race, the opportunity to work from home, household density, community density, health literacy, access to information and to vaccines — all of those factors informed disease patterns," said Larry Warner, one of the scholars.

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