Neuroprosthetics Lab

Neuroprosthetics Lab

The goal of the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab is to develop technology to restore abilities affected from neurological injury and disease. We build brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) focusing on helping people living with neurological impairments regain lost function. The group is part of the Department of Neurological Surgery and is led by Assistant Professors David Brandman and Sergey Stavisky.

Our current research focuses on restoring speech and reach and grasp. These motor BCIs can potentially help people with severe speech and motor impairment in the near-term, while providing direct access to human neural circuits for gaining the deeper neuroscientific understanding required to build BCIs that are more effective and capable of treating a wider range of conditions. We currently record using chronic Utah multielectrode arrays and with short-term sEEG recordings, while also working with partners to bring next-generation neurotechnologies to human use safely and quickly. Our expertise spans neuroengineering, systems neuroscience, neurosurgery, machine learning, and computational neuroscience. For more information, including open clinical trials and full team bios, visit our lab website: neuroprosthetics.faculty.ucdavis.edu/.

New brain-computer interface allows man with ALS to 'speak' again

Our researchers have restored an ALS patient's ability to communicate - through a computer, and in his own voice. Learn how a new brain-computer interface (BCI) developed at UC Davis Health translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy.

The study on this groundbreaking trial is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Co-Directors

David Brandman, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.S.C.

I’m a board-certified neurosurgeon interested in brain computer interfaces (BCIs) to help people living with motor impairments. I completed my neurosurgical training at Dalhousie University. During residency I joined the Clinical Investigator Program and started doctoral research at Brown University. I joined the BrainGate research group, with Dr. Leigh Hochberg as my supervisor. My research focused on decoding algorithms for BCIs. After graduate school I studied with Dr. John Simeral, developing software platforms for real-time neural decoding in embedded systems.

I did my stereotactic functional / epilepsy neurosurgical fellowship at Emory University. I specialize in using neuromodulation and minimally invasive procedures to help people living with movement disorders, chronic pain, spasticity, and epilepsy.

Sergey Stavisky, Ph.D.

I’m a neuroscientist and neuroengineer and an Assistant Professor in the UC Davis Department of Neurological Surgery. I work at the intersection of systems and computational neuroscience, neuroengineering, and machine learning. I’m trying to understand how the brain controls movements, and to use this knowledge to build brain-computer interfaces that treat brain injury and disease.

I did my undergrad at Brown University, my Ph.D. in the Stanford Neurosciences Program in the group of Dr. Krishna Shenoy, and my postdoc in the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory led by Drs. Jaimie Henderson and Shenoy.