Special Session

Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Virtual Reality Technologies for Cognitive Training and Rehabilitation

First Proposer – Nitish Thakor
Johns Hopkins University, USA /National Univeristy of Singapore

Biographical Sketch
Nitish V. Thakor (‘F 1994) is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in the USA as well as the Director the Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE) at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Thakor’s technical expertise is in the field of Neuroengineering, including neural instrumentation, nuromorphic engineering, neural microsystems, neural signal processing, optical imaging of the nervous system, neural control of prosthesis and brain machine interface. He has pioneered many technologies for brain monitoring to prosthetic arms and neuroprosthesis. He is an author of more than 280 refereed journal papers, more than a dozen patents, and co-founder of 3 companies. He is currently the Editor in Chief of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, and was the Editor in Chief of IEEE TNSRE from 2005-2011 and presently the EIC of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing. Dr. Thakor is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, IEEE, Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and Fellow of International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering

Second Proposer – Tassos Bezerianos
University of Patras/ National University of Singapore

Biographical Sketch
Tassos Bezerianos is a Full professor in the Medical School of Patras University, Greece, Research Professor in the ECE, National University of Singapore and Senior Principal Research Fellow of Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE). Tassos has an interdisciplinary background and holds a BS degree in Physics, MSc in Electronics and Radio Communications, and PhD in Bioengineering. His research interests belong to the Biomedical Engineering and Informatics areas and he is specialized in building up models for, and applications in, Neurosciences and Systems Medicine and Biology.
HHis most recent research deals with Cognitive Processes and constitute the most significant examples of advanced Computational Intelligence methods for a really innovative and “comprehensive” studying and imaging of the dynamics of cerebral and mental processes in the brain.
He has worked as reviewer in several Biomedical Engineering and Computational Intelligence journals and now serves as Associate Editor in Annals of Biomedical Engineering and Transaction on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (TNSRE) of the IEEE. He serves also as a member of Technical Committee of Neural Engineering Section of EMBS/IEEE.

Third Proposer – Andreas Ioannides
AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd (AAISCS), Nicosia, Cyprus

Biographical Sketch
Prof. Andreas A. Ioannides was born in Morphou, Cyprus. He studied Physics (1970-73) and completed his PhD at Surrey University UK (1973-76), continuing with research in nuclear Physics until 1988. Since 1986 he started research in biology that by 1989 narrowed to
magnetoencephalography. The initial emphasis on basic theory and mathematical analysis techniques lead also to development of experimental protocols and dedicated hardware (freely donated to the community with some nowadays installed in MEG systems world-wide). Prof. Ioannides established theoretical teams and set up functional neuroimaging laboratories in international centers of excellence in the UK (1989 -98), Germany (1994-8) and Japan (1998 – 2009) leading to over 130 scientific papers. Over ten of his PhD students are now leading scientist, some heading international centres of excellence in Europe, North America and Asia. Prof. Ioannides returned to Cyprus in 2009 as the director of AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd (AAISCS) a private company that continues the basic neuroscience research of previous years with the additional goal of using the resulting knowledge to develop new services and products with cheaper and widely accessible technology. The company also provides support for experiments and data analysis in Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography.

Theme
Unimodal and Multimodal Brain Imaging Techniques for Monitoring the brain and changes after Training

Keywords
EEG, MEG and fMRI. Video Games and Virtual Reality. Biomarkers of Cognitive Training. Brain Connectivity.

Abstract
This session will focus on how to build up capabilities in cognitive and engineering systems for brain function assessment, imaging, and brain machine or human machine interfaces for cognitive performance quantification and biomarkers for brain enhancement. We will discuss both unimodal and multimodal methods of brain imaging, The inherent advantage of multimodal (EEG, MEG, fMRI, DTI) techniques and in concurrent recording sessions where it is possible. For the analysis of multimodal data, we are moving from univariate to multivariate (graph theoretical methods) mapping of the brain networks. The case for pushing one or few selected modalities to their limits will also be considered. The specific combination of MEG with MRI and DTI offers the capability of obtaining information with exquisite accuracy in both the spatial and temporal domains across a wide range of temporal scales and throughout the brain. For easy and widespread applications EEG offers the best option today for translating some of the basic neuroscience results to useful services and products.
The use of naturalistic stimuli in a Virtual Reality (VR) environments hs made great strides recently and promises to become a powerful tool to study brain function in maturalistic but controlled conditions.These methods are applicable for both healthy population and professionals working in VR workplaces as well as for mental state monitoring of elderly people and stroke patients and cognitive training for rehabilitation.
The session will have a sub-session with a presentation by inviting key researchers in the area and original, high quality, high impact research papers on all conjugated topics. Papers will be selected on the basis of novelty, technical merit, presentation and impact.