Events

Maryam M. Shanechi is the Alexander A. Sawchuk Endowed Chair and Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering, and the Founding Director of the Center for Neurotechnology at USC. She received her B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto and her S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. She conducts research at the intersection of engineering, AI, and neuroscience to develop closed-loop neurotechnology. Awards include the NIH Director’s New Innovator, NSF CAREER, ONR Young Investigator, ASEE’s Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, MIT TR35, Popular Science Brilliant 10, Science News SN10, One Mind Rising Star Award, and a DoD MURI. She is a fellow of IEEE and AIMBE and a two-time Blavatnik National Awards Finalist.

Title: AI-driven neurotechnology

I will present our work at the interface of AI/ML and neuroscience to develop next-generation brain-computer interfaces that can model, decode, and modulate the activity of large populations of neurons in brain disorders such as major depression. First, I present a dynamical modeling framework that can decode brain states such as mood from human brain network activity. Then, I show how we can also predict the effect of external inputs, such as electrical stimulation, on brain network activity toward closed-loop modulation of neural states. I also develop a novel dynamical modeling framework to jointly describe neural-behavioral data and dissociate behaviorally relevant neural dynamics. I then extend these models to admit multiple neural modalities and enable multimodal fusion. Finally, I discuss the challenge of developing AI algorithms for real-time neurotechnology. I will present a framework that combines neural networks with stochastic state-space models to enable accurate yet flexible inference of brain states causally, non-causally, and even with missing neural samples. These AI-based neurotechnologies can help restore lost motor and emotional function in millions of patients with brain disorders.