Neural Engineering and Informatics Laboratory

Our Group

Lab Director
Prof. Metin Akay

SHORT BIO:

Metin Akay, Associate Professor of Engineering, Psychology and Brain Sciences, and Computer Science at Dartmouth received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in 1981 and 1984, respectively and a PhD degree from Rutgers University in 1990.

Prof. Akay has played a key role in promoting the biomedical education in the world by writing several prestigous books and editing the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Book Series published by the Wiley and IEEE Press and sponsored by the IEEE EMB Society. Prof Akay is author/coauthor of the 14 books including "Theory and Design of Biomedical Instruments (Academic Press, 1991)", "Biomedical Signal Processing (Academic Press, 1994)", "Detection Estimation of Biomedical Signals(Academic Press, 1996)", "Time-Freq and Wavelets in BME (Wiley and IEEE Press, 1997)" Nonlinear Biomedical SIgnal Processing (Wiley and IEEE Press, 2000), Information Tech in Medicine (Wiley and Sons, 2000) He is currenlt editing several books on "Genomics and Proteomics Engineering in Medicine and Biology" and "Neural Engineering". He is also the founding editor-in-chief of the first online biomedical engineering encyclopedia published by the Wiley and Sons.

He served as the invited guest editor for 12 special issues of the IEEE EMB Mag, Annals of BME, Journal of BME in the areas of cardiovascular engineering, Virtual Reality in Medicine, Advances in Biomedical Signal Processing, Fuzzy Logic in Medicine. He is also the invited guest editor for the Proc of IEEE, the second largely cited IEEE journal, on Neural Engineering. He is also the invited guest editor for the two special issues of the Proc of IEEEE on the Funcational Genomics which will be published in 2002.

He was the chair of the IEEE EMBS Summer School on Biomedical Signal Processing in 1997, and founder and chair of the Annual International Summer School on Biocomplexity from Syste, to Gene sponsored by the NSF, the IEEE EMBS and Dartmouth College. He was also the program chair of the Annual IEEE EMBS Conference 2001 and the organizer and chair of the first NSF Satellite Conference on Bioinformatics: Genomics and Proteomics and the founder and chair of the first International IEEE Conference on Neural Engineering, in 2003. These activities were sponsored by the NSF and largely attended by the women and minorities. He is a strong supporters of the women and minorities in the engineering, medicine and science in the world. He is also the IEEE Distinguished lecturer in Bioengineering.

He gave 35 keynote and plenary talks and several invited talks at the international meetings including the ICAP'94, IFSA'95, the DSP applications and Exhibition Conference'96, the Satellite Symposium of the IEEE EMBS'98 in China, the 12th Annual Conference of Japanese Society of Medical Electronics and Biomedical Engineering, the first and second Latin-American Conference on Biomedical Engineering'98 and 01.

Prof. Akay is a recepient of the IEEE EMBS Career Service "for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of the scientific stature and visibility of IEEE-EMBS and extraordinary dedication to the promotion of biomedical engineering education in the world."

He is also a receipent of the IEEE Third Millenium Medal for " his contributions to biomedical engineering research and education".

He was received the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Early Career Achievement Award 1997 "for outstanding contributions in the detection of coronary artery disease, in understanding of early human development, and leadership and contributions in biomedical engineering education".

Prof. Akay received the Young Investigator Award of the Sigma Xi Society, Northeast Region in 1998 and 200 for "his outstanding research activity and the ability to communicate the importance of his research to the general public.

Dr. Akay is a senior member of IEEE, a member of Eta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, The American Heart Association, and The New York Academy of Science. He also serves on the advisory board of several international journals including the IEEE T-BME, IEEE T-ITIB, Smart Engineering Systems etc. and NIH Bioengineering partnership study session and several NSF review panels.

Research Associate

Jana Bardonova, PhD
Jana Bardonova received her BS, MS and PhD (2003) from Brno University of Technology in Czech Republic. She is currenly an research associate at Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College. Her current research involves the BioMEMs and understanding of the respiratory neural networks and statistical signal processing and modelling.

Graduate Students

PhD

Bethany Knorr, MS
Bethany is currently a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering at Dartmouth College. She graduated in 2001 from Colby College with a BA in biology and with honors in mathematics. She also received her MS in Biomedical Engineering from Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, in 2004. Her research interests involve the understanding of the motor functions in patients with Parkinson’s disease and post-stroke hemiplegic patients.

Janelle M Chang
Janelle Chang is a current graduate student at the Thayer School of Engineering. She graduated in 2003 from Dartmouth College with a BA in Applied Mathematics and honors in Engineering. Her previous research topics include GISP2 ice cores (2002), an honors thesis in material science (2003), and an investigation of the ability of MRI to determine the porosity of synthetic bone samples (2003). She plans to begin a Masters in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Akay in Winter 2004 while completing her BE concurrently.

Undergraduate Students

	Katherine L Muse Katherine Muse is an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College, class of 2005, majoring in Engineering modified with Biology. She is currently working as a WISP intern for Professor Akay researching Neonatal Development. She was recently awarded with a Presidential Scholarship to continue her research under supervision of Prof. Akay.

	Laura M Brill Laura Brill is a currently undergraduate student ar Dartmouth and her current research interest includes the analysis of body motion in healthy young and elderly subjects. She loves hiking and sunshine, but while living in Hanover she has had to settle for cross-country skiing and lots of snow instead! She is a Math major and Spanish minor, but after beginning this internship decided to take some Engineering classes and is now considering adding an Engineering minor. She was recently awarded with a Presidential Scholarship to continue her research under supervision of Prof. Akay.

	Linh Huynh Linh Huynh is currently an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College and a member of the class of 2006. She is pursuing a major in Psychology and Brain Sciences with a concentration in pre-med. To gain first-hand experiences in the science field, Linh is participating in a WISP internship with Professor Akay, investigating motor functions in patients with Parkinson's Disease and post-stroke syndromes. She hopes the internship will further motivate her to pursue careers in the medical field in the future.

	Kathleen Boyne Kathleen Boyne is an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College, class of 2007. She plans to pursue a career in medicine but is open to anything else that will contribute to the well-being of society. Currently, she is investigating developmental abnormalities in neonates with Professor Akay through a WISP internship.

	Davida Kornreich Davida Kornreich is currently a freshman at Dartmouth College. She grew up in NYC, graduating from Hunter College High School in June 2003. Davida had an interest in science throughout high school, taking AP Biology and AP Chemistry. At Dartmouth, Davida has taken Chemistry 10 and is currently taking Biology 16, with a pre-med focus. From this internship, she hopes to gain insight into engineering and research professions.

Collaborators

	Paolo Bonato, PhD Paolo Bonato received a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy (1989), and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Universita di Roma "La Sapienza", Roma, Italy (1995). From 1990 to 1991 he was a research fellow with the Biophysics Research Group of IRST, Trento. In 1995 and 1996 he received a post-doctoral fellowship at the Dipartimento di Elettronica of Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. From 1996 to 2002 he was Research Assistant Professor at the NeuroMuscular Research Center of Boston University, Boston, MA. He is currently the Director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, MA and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School. His research work includes rehabilitation engineering, electromyography, and biomechanics of movement. He has developed intelligent signal processing tools for investigating problems in neurophysiology and neuro-fuzzy inference systems for the analysis of data recorded using wearable sensors. Current work is toward the application of these techniques for the assessment of motor function impairment in post-stroke patients and motor fluctuations in subjects with Parkinson's disease. He is a Member of IEEE EMBS and of IEEE SP societies.

	Irena Cosic, PhD Irena Cosic - (B.Eng in electrical engineering 1976, MS 1982 and PhD 1985. in biomedical engineering, University of Belgrade). From 1977 to 1989 she was senior researcher at the Institute Vinca, Belgrade, where she was working on a variety of projects in biomedical engineering, digital signal analysis and telecommunication. In 1980 she commenced her research in digital signal processing applications on linear macromolecules. This research resulted in the Resonant recognition Model (RRM) of protein and DNA interactions. From 1989 until the beginning of 1993 she was a Research Fellow in the Biochemistry Department, Monash University, where she was able to test some practical applications of the RRM model. From 1993 until February 2002 she has been a Senior Lecturer/ Associate Professor in the Department of E&CS at Monash University, where she is continuing her research in the field of biomolecular electronics. Since February 2002 she is appointed as Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Head of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at RMIT University. Professor Cosic is senior member of IEEE, Fellow of IEAust and active member of a number of other national and international professional societies. She teaches Bioelectromagnetism and Biomedical Engineering, she has published one research book, one international patent as well as over 100 other refereed publications predominantly in the area of biomolecular electronics and biomedical engineering.

	Aidan K Curran, PhD In 1992, Dr. Curran received his BSc from the University College Cork, Ireland and in 1995, earned his PhD from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Dr. Curran was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison between 1995 - 1998, prior to coming to Dartmouth in 1998. He was awarded a Parker B Francis Foundation Pulmonary Research Fellowship in 2000. Dr. Curran's interests are in the neural control of cardiorespiratory output. In particular he is interested in reflexes arising from the upper airway and the interactions between blood pressure and respiration. In addition, he is interested in cardiorespiratory control in neonates with emphasis on possible mechanisms of SIDS, specifically regarding central and peripheral chemoreception in the control of upper airway mechanics.

	Susan McGrath, PhD Susan McGrath received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University in 1988 and her MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University in 1990 and 1996, respectively. Her graduate research focused on biomedical instrumentation and biomedical image processing and classification. Susan worked at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Lakehurst, New Jersey, from 1984-1997. Her work there as a Senior Technologist involved research and development of technologies to support aircraft carrier based applications such as aircraft tracking and identification and shipboard robotics. Susan worked for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) in Camden, New Jersey from 1998 until she joined ISTS in August 2000. While at ATL, her research focused on mobile intelligent agents for military applications, including DARPA's Control of Agent Based Systems program.

	Toshiyo Tamura, PhD Toshiyo Tamura, PhD received his PhD degree in 1980 at Tokyo Medical and Dental University. From 1980 he has served as a research associate in the Institute for Medical and Dental Engineering, Tokyo Medical and Dental University. In 1984 he spent a year and half at a Department of Biomedical Engineering, Linkoping University. Linkoping., Sweden, From 1991 to 1993, he was an Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yamaguchi University, Ube, Yamaguchi. Form 1993 to 1998, was an Associate Professor at Institute for Medical and Dental Engineering, Tokyo Medical and Dental University. From 1998, he served as a director, Department of Gerontechnology, National Institute for Longevity Sciences. His research and teaching activities have been focused on biomedical transducers involving noninvasive apparatus and biosignal analysis. His scientific work is represented more than 50 published articles in international journals. He is also an active member in several national and international societies and has presented numerous lectures at international meetings.

	Suzanne M Wendelken, MS Suzanne Wendelken received her BA and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering at Dartmouth College, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. She is currently working at the ISTS Dartmouth College. Her research interests are in medical decision making.

Alumni

	Stefan Karlsson, PhD Stefan Karlsson received his master's degree in engineering from Luleå Technical University in 1984. Since 1985, he has been working as research engineer, involved in many research and developmental work in co-operation with medical professionals, at the University Hospital in Umeå, Sweden. In 1996, he started his PhD work on spectral analysis of surface myoelectrical signals and received the PhD degree in biomedical engineering 2000. His current research interests includes software engineering, biomedical signal analysing and processing, and particular in the field of surface electromyography.

	Noriko Ichinoseki-Sekine, PhD Noriko Ichinoseki-Sekine received her BS and MS from Physical Education, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan, in 1995 and 1997, respectively. She received the PhD from Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, in 2000. Since 2000, she had been Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Gerontechnology, National Institute for Longevity Sciences, Japan. She was a research associate at Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College. Her research interests include the maturation of respiratory neural networks, biomedical informatics, gerontechnology (medical engineering for elderly), evaluation of muscle fatigue, and estimation of human growth stages. She is currently with Department of Gerontechnology, National Institute for Longevity Sciences, Ohbu, Aichi, Japan.

	Masaki Sekine, PhD Masaki Sekine received PhD in Engineering from Tokyo Denki University in Japan in 2001. He was a Research Associate at Thayer School Engineering, Dartmouth College. His research areas include the assistive itechnology in the elderly helps the life of elderly, gait analysis. He is currently with the Chiba University, Japan.

	Alois Schlögl, PhD Alois Schlögl received his degree Dr techn. for his PhD-thesis on "the electroencephalogram and the adaptive autoregressive model" in July 2000 from the Graz University of Technology. During his PhD-study, he was research assistant at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. He worked adaptive algorithms for the single-trial and online analysis of spontaneous EEG. At the World Congress 2000 on biomedical engineering, he was finalist at the student paper competition. Within an European research project on automated sleep analysis, he coordinated the task group for artifact processing of sleep EEG and performed quality control of multi-center polysomnographic data. His main interest is the field of neuroscience, where he likes to apply his experience in biomedical signal processing.

	Urban Wiklund, PhD Urban Wiklund received the MSc degree in industrial electronics from Luleå Technical University, Sweden in 1985. He was then involved in the development of a navigation system for autonomous-guided vehicles, which was based on angle measurements to passive identical beacons. Since 1989 he has been working as a research engineer at UmeEUniversity Hospital, Sweden. He received the PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering with the dissertation "Modelling and Analysis of Heart Rate Variability Signals: Wavelets and Autoregressive Methods in Clinical Environments" from Umeå University in 2001. His main research interests are signal processing and its application to biomedical signals.

	Shannon C Agner, MS Shannon C. Agner received her BA and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College in 2002 and 2004, respectively Her research interest involves the understanding of the influency of vagotomy on respiratory patterns.

	Suzanne M Wendelken, MS Suzanne Wendelken received her BA and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering at Dartmouth College, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. She is currently working at the ISTS Dartmouth College. Her research interests are in medical decision making.

	Katherine P Heyman Katherine Heyman is an undergraduate student at Dartmouth College, class of 2005. She is majoring in Religion and minoring in Engineering and Psychology. Katherine is currently doing a WISP internship with Professor Akay researching Parkinson's Disease. She was awarded with a Presidential Scholarship to continue her work with Professor Akay on the gait analysis.

	April Mohns April Mohns is a senior biomedical engineering student at Dartmouth College, and she has received a Luce Scholarship for engineering graduate school next year at Dartmouth. In 2003, she revealed how to use Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a noninvasive measure of the biomechanical properties of articular cartilage. Previously, she designed and implemented a temperature control system for ThermalVision's microwave thermokeratoplasty (MTK) applicator. She credits her interest in bioengineering research to her initial research project with Prof Akay in 2001. During that year, she helped define and quantify changes in the complexity of the respiratory neural network that accompany maturation in piglets.

Our Research

RESEARCH INTEREST:

Neural Basis of Respiratory Patterns during Maturation:
The effect of Hypoxia, Hypercapnia and Developmental Abnormalities on Maturation

Previous studies in various animal models have shown that respiratory premotor and motoneurons undergo rapid and drastic changes in biochemical and bioelectrical properties during the first month of the postnatal life. During the same period, there is an increase in the complexity of the dendritic tree arborizes and changes from a bipolar to a multipolar morphology. Since the respiratory motor output depends on the integrated properties of the neural network, it is likely that neuronal maturation alters the dynamics of the respiratory output. However, developmental abnormalities of the respiratory pattern generator (the ventral medulla of the brainstem) that interfere with protective cardiorespiratory responses to hypoxia, hypercapnia, and apnea during sleep is believed to be responsible for the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in human infants although the exact cause of the SIDS is still unknown.

In this study, we characterize the respiratory output using the nonlinear dynamical analysis method and determine if a defect in the ventral medulla causes any changes in the on the dynamics of the respiratory networks to gain insight the development of the respiratory network during maturation. We believe that the dynamical behavior of the respiratory generator can be quantified as the complexity measure which can be used to reveal differences in the state of the neuronal networks during maturation.

This research was supported by the American Heart Association and NIH. It has been supported by the NIH-R01.

Neural Rehabilitation Engineering
Assestment of Complexity of Gait and Mobility During Walking in Patient With Parkinson's Disease.

In this study, we characterize the dynamics of body motion using the custom-made accelerometer unit consisting of three uni-axial accelerometers (designed by our group and collaborators). These are mounted orthogonally to record signals in the anteroposterior (X), lateral (Y) and vertical (Z) directions.

We have analyzed the body motion of patients with Parkinson's disease, healthy young and elderly subjects using the nonlinear dynamical analysis methods. Our data suggest that the Parkinson's disease increases the complexity of body motion compared to those of healthy elderly people.

We are currently building a wireless system to record the body motion from subjects with Parkinson's disease, Amyothrophic Lateral Sclerosis and neurological diseases.

This research has been supported by the Japanese Foundation.

TEACHING INTEREST:

Prof. Akay teaches three courses at Dartmouth.

ENGS 10: Biomedical Informatics (Undergraduate)
ENGS 110: Signal Processing (Undergraduate/Graduate)
PSYC 61: Neural Networks and Computation (Undergraduate)

Publications

Under Constructions

Our Activities

Biocomplexity Summer School:

The 1st International Summer School on Biocomplexity from System to Gene 2001

The 2nd International Summer School on Biocomplexity from System to Gene 2002

The 3rd International Summer School on Biocomplexity from System to Gene 2003

The 4th International Summer School on Biocomplexity from System to Gene 2004

Neural Engineering Conferences:

The 1st International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural engineering

The 2nd International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural engineering

Wiley Encyclopedia of Biomedical engineering: