The  rodent  whisker  system  is  a  prominent  experimental  subject  for  the  study  of  sensorimotor  integration  and active sensing. As a result of improved video-recording technology and progressively better neurophysiological methods, there is now the  prospect  of  precisely  analyzing  the  intact  vibrissal   sensori motor system. The vibrissae and snout analyzer (ViSA), also noted as BWTT, a widely used algorithm based on computer vision and image processing, has  been  proven  successful  for  tracking  and  quantifying  rodent sensorimotor  behavior,  but  at  a  great  cost  in  processing  time. Unfortunately,  the  ViSA  processing  rate  lags  far  behind the data-generation rate of modern cameras. The acceleration…

The SINs (Smart Implantable Neurostimulators) project is focused on the development of soft- and hardware for the next generation neurostimulators. It is a collaboration between the Dutch Neuroscience Department of the Erasmus Medical Center, Neurasmus B.V., the Delft University of Technology and the Belgian BRAI²N group (Brain Research center Antwerp for Innovative & Interdisciplinary Neuromodulation).   Neurostimulation is the electrical stimulation of the nervous system, which may be used for the treatment of many medical conditions. The advantage of electrical stimulation over pharmaceutical means is that the stimulation can be applied at specific locations, limiting the side-effects experienced by the…

The United States National Academy of Engineers has already classified brain emulation as one of the Grand Engineering Challenges. Brain emulation in-silico is a relevant research field for various reasons:   • The immediate benefit of brain emulation is the greater understanding of brain behavior by simulations based on biologically plausible models. Depending on the complexity of the model, it can provide  insight on single-cell behavior to network dynamics of whole brain regions without the need for in-vivo experiments. This can greatly accelerate brain  experimentation and the understanding of the biological mechanisms. • One important eventual goal of the field is…