2022 SECD Research Roundup - Communication Neuroscience Lab

Kelcey Buck Author

03/07/2022 Added

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Jake Greenwood, a research assistant at the Communication Neuroscience Lab, discusses the overall research goals of the lab, including the technologies used and developed by lab personnel.

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[00:00:00.000]So, this lab is generally
[00:00:02.068]focused on fNIRS research.
[00:00:03.536]So, this is a
[00:00:04.838]an example of an fNIRS cap,
[00:00:07.040]where
[00:00:07.974]uh, normally this would be on a real human, but
[00:00:09.709]right now we have our surrogate.
[00:00:12.045]The whole idea of this setup
[00:00:13.880]is to send infrared light
[00:00:16.416]into the brain tissue
[00:00:17.984]and then it comes out
[00:00:19.519]in what's called a
[00:00:20.820]a banana
[00:00:21.688]or what, what looks like a banana.
[00:00:23.890]Um
[00:00:24.758]The light goes in and it comes out
[00:00:26.126]and is detected by these detectors.
[00:00:28.495]What we can do with that
[00:00:30.196]uh, since there's two different frequencies of light,
[00:00:32.899]we can use, um
[00:00:35.335]complicated formulas to determine the
[00:00:37.303]level of oxygenated
[00:00:38.605]and deoxygenated blood
[00:00:40.306]that that light passed through.
[00:00:41.941]And so by having this whole array of
[00:00:44.244]uh, sources and detectors,
[00:00:46.212]we can figure out
[00:00:47.614]the level of
[00:00:48.948]uh, oxygenated blood
[00:00:50.517]at different spots in the brain.
[00:00:52.252]We can use this to research all sorts of things,
[00:00:54.487]like the effects of
[00:00:55.388]somatosensory stimulation or
[00:00:57.757]the effects of auditory stimulation, uh, etc.
[00:01:00.827]So, this is pTACS.
[00:01:02.328]So, this is the Pulsed Tactile Somatosensory Stimulator.
[00:01:05.298]It's a new stimulator that we've created in-house
[00:01:08.134]in order to stimulate the hand
[00:01:10.236]uh, or the face or
[00:01:11.504]potentially even the feet.
[00:01:13.039]Uh, so the general idea of this device is it generates
[00:01:15.942]uh, pulses of pressure.
[00:01:18.311]So, positive and negative pressure.
[00:01:20.513]Uh, we use these things
[00:01:22.415]uh, we call TAC cells.
[00:01:25.952]And so these are
[00:01:27.053]we describe them as suction cups
[00:01:29.155]that you use double-sided adhesive tape
[00:01:31.691]to attach to the skin
[00:01:33.526]and the
[00:01:35.361]pulses of pressure end up pushing and pulling the skin.
[00:01:39.766]And
[00:01:40.900]that stimulation generates
[00:01:42.836]uh, generates a signal that goes to the brain
[00:01:45.772]and we can then measure that brain activation
[00:01:48.374]with technnologies like MRI or
[00:01:50.510]fNIRS, which is what we do a lot in this lab.
[00:01:52.712]We're using this device
[00:01:53.546]to address a lot of the issues we've had with
[00:01:55.815]uh, previous devices
[00:01:57.484]uh, including the, um
[00:02:00.520]including, uh, not being able to
[00:02:01.988]move this around. So, this
[00:02:03.389]this device itself can be moved around very easily.
[00:02:05.758]It's only a few pounds.
[00:02:07.760]It can be battery-powered
[00:02:09.129]or
[00:02:09.863]plugged into the wall.
[00:02:11.498]Uh, so it's very portable, very easy to use.
[00:02:14.100]Uh, and has a lot better
[00:02:15.535]um, qualities in terms of
[00:02:17.871]uh, research capabilities.
[00:02:20.039]So, this is the Galileo.
[00:02:21.407]This is what we've been using for
[00:02:23.343]quite awhile to
[00:02:25.178]to do, uh,
[00:02:26.179]our somatosensory research, so
[00:02:28.381]so, just like the
[00:02:29.549]pTACS, this
[00:02:30.683]produces a
[00:02:32.152]pulsed tactile stimulation,
[00:02:34.320]uh, but because of its
[00:02:35.588]its large size
[00:02:37.023]uh, its noisiness and its inability to be
[00:02:39.859]moved around, um
[00:02:41.928]we've had to adapt our own solution to
[00:02:44.297]basically take this
[00:02:45.498]technology
[00:02:46.733]uh, and be able to do it anywhere.

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2022 SECD Research Roundup - Communication Neuroscience Lab

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