Neural Engineering Training Program (NETP)

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Neural Engineering Training Program (NETP) NETP will train future translational scientists, engineers and clinicians to create innovative and clinically relevant treatments for neurological disorders, by providing unique curriculum and training opportunities for pre-doctoral students. Current treatments provide significant benefits to patients, but are in some ways inadequate because they cannot reliably detect events (e.g. epilepsy), do not provide sensory information at adequate resolution (visual prostheses), obtain low rate and inconsistent information (brain-machine and peripheral nerve interfaces), or have significant side-effects (deep brain stimulation). To improve these therapies, the field of neural engineering faces challenges related to acquiring and understanding large amounts of data from the brain and peripheral nervous system. Clinical neural prostheses will also require the ability to control neural circuits at high spatial and temporal resolution. Training the next generation of leaders in Neural Engineering will accelerate the development of solutions to these problems, but requires interdisciplinary training that not only teaches fundamental concepts but also exposes trainees to clinical practice to inform and motivate research questions towards translational goals. NETP will support four PhD candidates each year. NETP offers a rich, diverse curriculum as well as a wide-range of activities to promote interactions amongst mentors and trainees. Key aspects of NETP include co-mentoring of students by clinician-scientists, curriculum covering engineering, medical, and scientific aspects of neural engineering, an annual statistics workshop to reinforce rigorous experimental design and data analysis, medical seminars for engineering/basic science graduate students, specific training in translational research, and a student run annual research symposium. The environment for the NETP is world-class. Participating faculty leaders have expertise in neural prostheses, brain-machine interfaces, neural signal processing, neuromodulation, computational modeling, biomaterials, neuroscience, and bioelectronics medicine as well as medical school faculty in neurosurgery, urology, neurology, ophthalmology, and anesthesiology. Importantly, the participating faculty include several practicing clinicians who also serve as primary mentors for PhD students. State-of-the-art facilities include the North Campus Research Center, Lurie nanofabrication facility, the Michigan vector core, and the Material Characterization Center. The institutional environment is outstanding. Michigan has highly rated engineering and medical schools with high quality research throughout the university, and is committed to providing high quality graduate training.