School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

© 2009 Maysam Ghovanloo
Text Box: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a treatments that is very effective for Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, dystonia, epilepsy, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Today’s DBS devices, which have stemmed from the pacemaker technology, are mostly implanted in the chest area with wires running under the skin to the cranial electrodes. These wires are found to be the major cause of failure in DBS systems. Design of a small-size low-power head-mounted DBS system is the ultimate goal of this project. More…. Sponsor: N/A Status: Active Text Box: Low-Power Head-Mounted Deep Brain Stimulator Text Box: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein Here you can find a list of current and previous projects: Text Box: Research Projects Text Box: Real-time interfaces between the external world and the human nervous system, known as neural prostheses, can restore sensory and motor functions that are lost due to injury or disease. Effective interfacing with the central nervous system for restoration of the sensory modalities such as vision requires application of electrical stimulation through high-density interconnects in well-controlled temporal-spatial patterns similar to the natural cognitive neural activity. Some of the major challenges are the implant size, microassembly, stimulation strategy for controlling a large number of sites, low power consumption, wideband wireless link, and safety. We are trying to address the above issues by pushing the limits in each one of these directions. More…. Sponsor: National Science Foundation Status: Active Text Box: Wireless Neural Microstimulating System Text Box: Wireless link operating frequency, also known as the carrier frequency, is one of the most important parameters of a transcutaneous link for an implant, which affects all other system specifications. Traditionally, a single carrier has been used for (1) inductive power transmission, (2) forward data transmission from outside to the implanted device (downlink), and (3) back telemetry from the implanted device outward (uplink). In this project we are using three carrier signals at three different frequencies and amplitude levels: (a) low-frequency high-amplitude (fP ~ 10 MHz) for power transmission, (b) medium-frequency medium-amplitude (fFD ~ 50 MHz) for forward data link, and (c) high-frequency low-amplitude (fBT ~ 400 MHz) for back telemetry. These frequencies are close to optimal for the above three major functions and we can effectively separate many of the competing factors in the design of a wireless link. Therefore, we expect to achieve high performance in all of the aforementioned system requirements. More…. Sponsor: National Institutes of Health, NINDS Status: Active Text Box: Multi-Carrier Wireless Link for Implantable Biomedical Devices Text Box: A telemetry link from inside to outside of the human body is needed in biomedical implants especially when internal biosignals such as neural or muscular activities, or parameters such as pressure, temperature, flow, or concentration of different ions or proteins need to be continuously monitored. To improve implant safety, it should be able to run self-test routines, and report any malfunctioning blocks to the external part of the system. In addition, a closed-loop power regulation mechanism is needed to improve coupling insensitivity, and compensate for variations in the coils relative distance due to patient movements and coils misalignments. We are implementing a wideband and robust wireless multichannel data acquisition system using the Industrial-Medical-Scientific (ISM) band. We are aiming to develop a neural recording system capable of recording from more than 100 electrodes simultaneously without losing any piece of information. More…. Sponsor: National Science Foundation Status: Active Text Box: Multichannel Wireless Implantable Neural Recording System Text Box: Most brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are either too slow (EEG) or highly invasive (intracortical electrodes). Assistive technologies, on the other hand, can potentially offer effective means for people with severe disabilities to lead self-supportive and independent lives. Persons with tetraplegia as a result of causes ranging from high level spinal cord injury (C2-C4) to stroke generally find it extremely difficult to carry out everyday tasks. Modern assistive devices that can help them communicate their intentions to their environments will greatly benefit this group of severely disabled individuals. The goal of this project is to help this group of people to operate computers, electric wheelchairs, radios, phones, TVs, doors, motorized beds, and many other devices using their tongue motion. More…. Sponsor: Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, NIBIB Status: Active Text Box: Tongue Drive: A Tongue-Operated Environmental Controller Text Box: Patients forget to take their medicine, they may think side effects outweigh benefits, they may not believe the diagnosis, they may not understand the directions correctly, they may not know enough about the side-effects, they may use too much, or they may view the medicine as too costly. For whatever reason, even the best medications cannot cure diseases if the patients do not take them in the right doses at the right time. The topic of “pharmaceutical compliance” has become a key issue due to increasing difficulties in achieving point-of-differentiation and health economic objectives justifying premium pricing and reimbursement. We are working on a novel drug compliance monitoring device suitable for clinical and pharmaceutical trials. It can also be an integrated part of the marketed drug concepts. More…. Sponsor: N/A Status: Active Text Box: WINeR