{"id":75604,"date":"2020-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-engineering-professor-helping-als-patients-use-their-brains-to-communicate\/"},"modified":"2020-06-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T00:00:00","slug":"uri-engineering-professor-helping-als-patients-use-their-brains-to-communicate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/uri-engineering-professor-helping-als-patients-use-their-brains-to-communicate\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 engineering professor helping ALS patients use their brains to communicate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 25, 2020 \u2013 Doug Sawyer was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig&#8217;s disease, 11 years ago. His only muscles that still function are those that control eye movement.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his disability, Sawyer still works as an engineer from his home, designing electronics for\u00a0Hayward Industries. Using only his eyes,\u00a0the 57-year-old writes reports and other papers, draws pictures and schematics, talks on the phone, sends text messages\u00a0and\u00a0emails, and attends meetings online multiple times a week.<\/p>\n<p>However, Sawyer&#8217;s gaze weakens as he gets tired, causing the technology he currently uses to become ineffective. That&#8217;s why the Seekonk, Massachusetts resident was eager to work with 溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Professor Yalda\u00a0Shahriari to develop a new way for ALS patients to communicate.<\/p>\n<div class=\"oembed oembed-youtube-com\" style=\"\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4QDyWgpVMVc&#038;feature=youtu.be\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"溏心vlog免费B站 Engineering | Helping ALS patients  use their brains to communicate\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4QDyWgpVMVc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Shahriari and her team of student researchers in 溏心vlog免费B站&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/engineering\/\">College of Engineering<\/a> are developing a way for those with severe motor deficits such as ALS to communicate using brain signals, eliminating the need for patients to maintain\u00a0fine eye-gaze control.<\/p>\n<p>Her project, funded by a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=1913492&amp;amp;HistoricalAwards=false\">National Science Foundation (NSF) grant<\/a>,\u00a0has two main goals. The first is to\u00a0develop multimodal personalized algorithms to improve the robustness of the brain-computer interface (BCI) systems for patients with severe motor deficits.\u00a0The second is to develop an autonomous hybrid system for non-communicative patients who are without residual motor control, such as those who lose their fine eye-gaze control in the late stages of ALS.<\/p>\n<p>Through\u00a0longitudinal recordings taken of several patients with ALS during this and previous projects,\u00a0Shahriari and her group have noticed\u00a0significant day-to-day variations in brain-computer interface performance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These variations are speculated to be associated with several factors, including cognitive fluctuations and environmental factors,&#8221; said\u00a0Shahriari. &#8220;Developing\u00a0personalized algorithms will enable us to predict these\u00a0fluctuations and optimize performance based on each patient\u2019s specifications and needs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To ensure more accurate readings of brain activity, two non-invasive techniques are implemented simultaneously: electroencephalogram (EEG) and\u00a0functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals.<\/p>\n<p>EEG\u00a0detects electrical activity in the brain using small, metal discs called electrodes. Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy is an optical imaging technique in which an emitter transmits near infrared light and a detector detects the\u00a0light reflected from the surface of the brain. This technique measures oxygen changes in the concentration of hemoglobin in the brain. The higher the concentration, the more activity is taking place.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will use a hybrid of EEG and fNIRS signals to compensate for each\u00a0neuroimaging\u00a0modality shortage and use the complementary features obtained from each modality to improve our system,&#8221; said\u00a0Shahriari.<\/p>\n<p>For patients in the later stages of ALS who experience cognitive dysfunction, such as memory loss and the inability to maintain eye gaze on objects, Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy has shown to be a more accurate method of measurement.<\/p>\n<p>Shahriari and her students have developed a visuo-mental dual task paradigm which relies on conventional oddball-based protocols, but require the subjects to do some mental arithmetic tasks. This BCI approach is accomplished by displaying a grid of letters and numbers and\u00a0intermittently flashing an image (matrix of digits) over each row and column.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By giving the patient higher demanding tasks to focus on, we can trigger several cognitive functions and extract the associated signatures or neural biomarkers,&#8221; said doctoral student Bahram Borgheai. &#8220;The computer can then decode the pattern of neural activities that appear after the patient performs the tasks. The patterns can be used for diagnostic and communication purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shahriari has collaborated with\u00a0the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies on projects since 2012.\u00a0With the support of the national center, the Rhode Island Chapter of the ALS Association and Rhode Island Hospital, the professor would like to add more patients to the study.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our analysis of the data becomes much more powerful if we can\u00a0significantly increase the number of patients in the study,&#8221; said Shahriari.<\/p>\n<p>Patients will be asked to wear a cap with sensors attached that can record brain activity in the comfort of their homes or at a care center. Recordings of those with healthy brains will take place in\u00a0Shahriari&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/neuralpclab\/\">Neural Processing and Control Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0in 溏心vlog免费B站&#8217;s Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering.\u00a0All data processing and analysis will be conducted in the lab.<\/p>\n<p>Once enough patients have volunteered to participate in the research project,\u00a0Shahriari plans to partner with more local hospitals and medical schools to take advantage of their clinical expertise.<\/p>\n<p>Sawyer has relished the opportunity to participate in the study.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Taking part in the brain activity study has been very rewarding,&#8221; said Sawyer. &#8220;I enjoy learning new things and staying abreast of the latest technology. Dr. Shahriari and her team have been willing to share their progress.\u00a0They make me feel as if I&#8217;m part of their team and not just a test number.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sawyer hopes that his participation will help\u00a0Shahriari develop a way for ALS patients to work and communicate after their motor functions have ceased.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t consider myself a victim\u00a0of ALS and I don&#8217;t consider\u00a0myself handicapped,&#8221; Sawyer said. &#8220;I just need help sometimes. There are people out there\u00a0far worse\u00a0off than me. Hopefully the time I give to Dr. Shahriari will someday improve their lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 25, 2020 \u2013 Doug Sawyer was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig&#8217;s disease, 11 years ago. His only muscles that still function are those that control eye movement. Despite his disability, Sawyer still works as an engineer from his home, designing electronics for\u00a0Hayward Industries. Using only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-75604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}