Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology (CfNN) Director and Professor of Engineering Leigh Hochberg, M.D., Ph.D., FAAN, FANA has received a Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research & Development (VA RR&D) Merit Award. Hochberg is the principal investigator for "BrainGate: Robust Neural Decoding for Veterans with ALS," a study that aims to provide Veterans with ALS a means to maintain or restore communication through neurally driven "point and click" control over a computer.
The four-year, $2,038,942 project began on August 1. The study team includes CfNN researchers and Brown Engineering Assistant Professor (Research) John Simeral, Senior Engineering Research Associate David Rosler, Stephen Mernoff, M.D., and Margy Bowker, R.N., as well as other research partners at the Brown School of Engineering, the Brown Institute for Brain Science, and Massachusetts General Hospital.