There are 2 professors: Professor Thakor and Professor Takkos

Homework: Rewatch the matrix.

The first quiz is 14th February:

What would be in the quiz?

Neurobiology

Signal analysis

Brain signals (learning about EEGs)

- EEG and methods

Lab 1: Cognitive Engineering

Lab 2: Vision Laboratory

Neuromorphic engineering: How to make the robot see?

Neuromorphic touch: How to make the robot touch: Brain-inspired sensors.

Brain-machine interface – Methods and laboratory

Second quiz is 28th March

Neurosensors

Neuromorphic engineering and touch.

Advice: Take some extra time to prepare for each class and learn the electronics. It will be
beneficial for the course.
Lecture 1 notes– Nitish Thakor

Neurotechnology: How to decode the brain.

There are 80 billion cells in the human brain. Each brain cell (neuron) connects to another brain cell
(Synapse) and can connect to 1000 brain cells. Each neuron is 10 microns. A long line in a neuron is
an axon. The longest axon is the height of your body.

Microelectrode records the active potentials of neurons, and normally measures lots of neurons. A
massive spike is a nearby neuron, and a smaller spike is a neuron is farther away.

100 billion neurons are working, but one cannot record all of the messages because there are just
too many.

EEG – electroencephalogram. Measures the electrical activity in the human brain.

KISS principle: Keep it simple stupid principle

Electrodes pick up the electrical signals, then amplified whilst the unwanted signals are attenuated.

Each electrode will pick up an EEG signal.

Can use brain wave activity to navigate the satellite.

BMI: Brain machine interface.

Machine Learning: Useful in this module (learn more on neural networks)

e.g. Monkey feeding itself using a robot.

EMG – Electromyogram

ECG – Electrocardiogram

Most problems that occur in robotics programming is due to decoding issues.

Neural prosthesis: Connect brain to muscles, connect the brain to the spine, peripheral nerve
interface.

Connect the brain to a chip: How can one do this?

Nerve injuries are when nerves get cut. Why can this be a problem? This can affect muscle activity
and this can reduce the size of the muscles of the humans.

Top examples of Neurotechnology: Parkinson’s disease and the use of Neurotechnology to treat
certain diseases.

Part 2:
Brain is monotasking, not an excellent multitasker, so it is essential for the brain to function better
that the brain is trained to monotask.

Aim: Go into the Sinapse lab, do some discussion and you learn by questioning rather than sitting
quiet.

Neural network: To make these connections, either to add/reinforce or blocks.

Exhibitory: Add, and Inhibitory: block

Stochastic: Built-in and random

Dendrites: look likes tentacles.

Interneurons

Confocal Microscope

Cell biology:

Nomenclature: Dendrites, Axon and Soma.

Understanding the brain:

Hippocampus

Cerebellum

Ion Channels

Schwann Cell

Types of synapse: Axodendritic, Axosomatic, Axoaxonic

Words to relate to:

Local potentials