IUCRC Phase II+ West Virginia University: Center for Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (IUCRC BRAIN)

由于可存活创伤和人口老龄化的增加，残疾正成为医疗保健问题的主要原因。数以百万计的成年人患有神经疾病、脑损伤、精神疾病、肢体丧失或瘫痪。需要能够更有效地满足这些患者的护理和康复需求的可获得的技术。然而，神经技术的创新面临着几个挑战：创新的速度超过了可接受性能的评估速度；神经技术的安全性、有效性和可靠性的验证标准滞后；当前的技术成本高昂，限制了其在残疾治疗中的部署；以及对新一代医生和工程师进行新兴技术培训的需求稳步增加。建立可靠的神经技术进步和创新的产学合作研究中心(IUCRC Brain)将应对上述挑战。该中心的愿景建立在一种融合研究方法的基础上，以设计和验证可靠的、伦理的、以患者为中心的神经技术及其在理解神经系统中的使用。Brain利用从神经、认知和康复工程到神经机器人学、神经调制和伦理人工智能等广泛的专业知识，通过与行业和其他战略合作伙伴的合作伙伴关系，提高新神经技术的开发速度和经验验证，同时培养一支高技能的劳动力队伍；评估这些技术对生活质量的影响；以及将人文学科的知识与神经技术相结合，以了解集体智力，并增强身体和认知能力。该中心的使命是多重的：通过向最终用户转让神经技术来加速科学进步和促进国民健康，并通过扩大新的参与和留住现有参与者来促进未被充分代表的少数群体在科学、技术、工程和数学方面的机会。大脑将解决神经空间中的问题，这些问题对代表不足的群体产生了不成比例的影响。Brain将成为一个神经技术中心，建立一条从发现到解决方案的管道，同时帮助学生、科学家和工程师解决我们这个时代最大的未得到满足的医疗和保健需求之一。IUCRC Brain的西弗吉尼亚州站点将专注于为整个IUCRC团队带来多规模、多模式和跨学科方法的临床测试。西弗吉尼亚大学在神经工程和新型神经设备的首次人体测试方面拥有专业知识。洛克菲勒神经科学研究所为高影响神经治疗的临床试验和测试提供了独特的环境。斯塔勒工程学院支持新生物技术应用的工程技术和应用开发。这个由多学科组成的西弗吉尼亚大学团队将与其他脑部网站和行业合作伙伴合作，将神经技术方面的发现转化为植入式脑机接口、治疗人类残疾、临床数据共享，以及使用人工智能连接的虚拟现实应用程序来改进医疗。西弗吉尼亚大学网站将提供支持，以维护休斯顿大学中心的项目库(https://nsfbrain.org/))，该项目库由产品和服务组成，在该项目完成后的10年内。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Disability is becoming a leading cause of healthcare concern because of the increase in survivable trauma and an aging population. Millions of adults live with neurological disorders, brain injury, mental illness, limb loss or paralysis. There is a need for accessible technologies that can more effectively address the care and rehabilitation needs of these patients. However, innovation in neurotechnology faces several challenges: The pace of innovation exceeds the rate of evaluation for acceptable performance; standards for the validation of safety, efficacy, and reliability of neurotechnology are lagging; current technologies are costly, limiting their deployment for treatment of disabilities; and the need to train new generations of physicians and engineers in emerging technologies steadily increases.The Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (IUCRC BRAIN) will address the above challenges. The Center’s vision is built on a convergent research approach to the design and validation of reliable, ethical, patient-centered neurotechnology and their use in understanding neural systems. BRAIN leverages wide-ranging expertise from neural, cognitive and rehabilitation engineering to neurorobotics, neuromodulation, and ethical artificial intelligence to enhance the rate of development and empirical validation of new neurotechnology through partnerships with industry and other strategic partners while developing a highly skilled workforce; evaluating the impact of these technologies on quality of life; and integrating knowledge across disciplines such as the humanities with neurotechnology to understand collective intelligence, and augment physical and cognitive capabilities. The Center’s mission is multifold: to accelerate the progress of science and advance the national health by transferring neurotechnology to end users and to promote access for underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math by broadening new participation and retaining current participants. BRAIN will address problems in the neurological space that disproportionately affect underrepresented groups. BRAIN will become a neurotechnology hub by creating a pipeline from discoveries to solutions, while helping students, scientists, and engineers solve one of the greatest unmet medical and health care needs of our time.The West Virginia Site of IUCRC BRAIN will focus on bringing clinical testing of multi-scale, multi-modal, and trans-disciplinary approaches to the overall IUCRC team. WVU has expertise in neural engineering and first-in-human testing of novel neurological devices. The Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute provides a unique environment of clinical trials and testing of high-impact neurological treatments. Statler College of Engineering supports the engineering technology and applications development of new biotechnology applications. This multi-disciplinary WVU team will work with other BRAIN sites and industry partners to translate discoveries in neurotechnology for implanted brain-computer interfaces, treating human disability, clinical data sharing, and the use of AI-connected virtual reality applications for improved medical treatments. The WVU site will provide support to maintain a project repository (https://nsfbrain.org/) at University of Houston Center, comprised of products and services for 10 years after the completion of this project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.