Institute of Sensorimotor Neuroscience (ISMN) inaugural lecture: Professor Marc Schieber

Abstract: For 150 years artificial stimulation has been used to study the normal function of the nervous system.  Such stimulation—whether electrical or optogenetic—eventually may be used in neuroprosthetic devices to replace lost sensory inputs and otherwise introduce information into the nervous system.  Efforts toward this goal can be classified broadly as either biomimetic or arbitrary.  Biomimetic stimulation aims to mimic patterns of natural neural activity, ideally enabling the subject immediately to experience the artificial stimulation as if it were natural sensation.  Arbitrary stimulation, in contrast, provides information that the subject must learn to interpret, requiring time and effort and possibly engaging plastic reorganization within the nervous system.  I will i) examine progress with these two approaches, ii) present studies from our own laboratory showing that arbitrary stimulation in the premotor cortex can be used to inject behavioral task instructions, and iii) discuss some of the challenges and aspirations for future development.