Neuroengineering & Medicine Seminar: Dissecting Learning and Memory with Brain-Computer Interfaces

Steven Chase, PhD

Event Date

Location
Kemper Hall, Rm. 1003, UC Davis Campus. Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/NeuroengMar22
A recording is available to UC Davis faculty, students, and researchers at this link.

STEVEN CHASE, PHD

Professor

Neuroscience Institute and Department of Biomedical Engineering

Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract

Behavior results from the coordinated actions of populations of neurons. Learning requires the brain to change the neural population activity it produces to achieve a given behavioral goal. What rules govern how neural activity evolves during learning, and how are learned events remembered once learning is done? In this talk, I will discuss our efforts to answer these questions using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

A BCI creates a mapping between neural activity and the movement of a cursor on a computer screen.  By changing this mapping, we create a learning environment that encourages a subject to reorganize their neural activity to regain control of the cursor. Further, because this mapping is known precisely, we can rigorously quantify how changes in neural activity relate to behavioral improvements. In the first part of this talk, I will present evidence of two learning processes during BCI control that operate on different timescales, have distinct neural signatures, and serve to optimize different behavioral goals. In the second part of this talk, I will present recent data that show how learning leaves a memory trace in motor cortex: a lasting alteration in the neural activity used to perform familiar tasks, in a manner appropriate for the learned experience.

Bio

Steven Chase is a Professor jointly appointed in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.  He received his BS in Applied Physics from Caltech in 1997, his MS in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 1999, and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins in 2006. After post-doctoral work split between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, he joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in 2011. In 2016, he received the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award. For his research, he designs brain-computer interfaces and used them to study motor learning and motor control.

This event has both in-person and remote options. Please register at this link:

https://tinyurl.com/NeuroengMar22