neural engineering

neural engineering, in biomedicine, discipline in which engineering technologies and mathematical and computational methods are combined with techniques in neuroscience and biology. Objectives of neural engineering include the enhancement of understanding of the functions of the human nervous system and the improvement of human performance, especially after injury or disease. The field is multidisciplinary in that it draws from the neurological sciences (especially neurobiology and neurology) as well as from a diverse range of engineering disciplines, including computer sciences, robotics, material sciences, signal processing, and systems modeling and simulation. The field covers a variety of subjects and applications; examples include brain-computer interfaces, neuroimaging, neuroinformatics, neural tissue engineering, and neurorobotics.

While the potential applications of neural engineering are broad, the discipline offers particular opportunities for improving motor and sensory function after major injury to the human central nervous system, such as that caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, or spinal cord injury. For those conditions, new technologies can be applied to help reroute neural signals around damaged areas of the brain or spinal cord or to substitute one type of neural signal for another type that is lost after the injury.

Animal models that were developed in the field have enabled researchers to study recordings from various cortical areas during normal voluntary behaviours, which has provided insight into human neural pathways. Neural signals can be filtered and processed and then used to instruct computers, to control simple robotic devices, or to activate electrical stimulators to control limb muscles. Alternative approaches allow signals from skin or other sensory areas to be routed around damaged areas and to be delivered to the cerebral cortex by other means. For example, sensory signals from the eye or from skin can be detected by a range of electronic sensors and delivered to the cortex in the form of electrical stimulus trains.

Other developments in the field include advances in neural tissue engineering, which is aimed at the repair and regeneration of nerves; advances in neural recording systems that allow long-term recording from small groups of nerve fibres in peripheral muscle or skin nerves; and the development of implantable stimulators for use in promoting recovery of walking in individuals with spinal cord injury or for the restoration of motor function after cortical damage sustained as a result of stroke. For example, neural cuffs that are implanted around nerves innervating the foot sole can be used to sense foot contact during walking or to detect other phases of locomotion, allowing accurate programming of muscle nerve stimulation.