Some years ago, the world was frozen with the “ice bucket challenge”. Liters of water and ice were dumped over thousands of people’s head to promote awareness and raise funds for the investigation of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS. The challenge, as you may remember, encouraged nominated participants to be recorded on video […]
Last December the 10th in Barcelona we were happy to present the first Brainpolyphony Orchestra Concert. Brainpolyphony is a project born thanks to the collaboration of CRG, University of Barcelona and Starlab with the goal of giving voice, or in this case music, to people with severe communication difficulties. Patients with neurological diseases such as […]
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are machine learning models that have been inspired by the brain functioning. Through my next posts I will try to introduce artificial neural networks in a simple high level way, highlighting its capabilities but also showing its limitations. In this first post, I will introduce the simplest neural network, the Rosenblatt […]
All of us who deal with EEG signals know how important artifacts are. EEG is one of the biological potentials with lowest amplitude (typically a few microvolts), which makes it highly sensitive to be contaminated by undesired interferences, known as artifacts. We can find several artifacts sources such as be biological (recorded activity from other […]
In all cities, the air we breathe contains emissions from motor vehicles, industry, heating and commercial sources which have sometimes travelled long distances from sources located far afield. Ambient air pollution is the major environmental contributor to the global burden of the disease, contributing to an estimated 4.7 million deaths per year worldwide. Air pollutants […]
Since its first edition in 1994 Sonar Festival is definitely one of the electronic music festivals you cannot miss. For its sixth consecutive year in Barcelona, Sonar+D organized its famous hackathon along with the Music Technology Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Sonar Music Hack Day (MHD) is a hacking session in which participants will […]
In this post I would like to introduce the concept of BrainPolyphony, a CRG Awards-founded project in which Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG), Universitat de Barcelona, Mobilitylab, ASDI and Starlab will explore new ways of communication for patients suffering from severe speech disabilities. Patients with neurodegenerative diseases, such as cerebral palsy, often experience important communication problems. […]
The EEG consists of the summed electrical activities of populations of neurons, with a modest contribution from glial cells. The neurons are excitable cells with characteristic intrinsic electrical properties, and their activity produces electrical and magnetic fields. Electroencephalography measures the electrical fields that reach the surface of the scalp and are produced by the joint […]
ADHD neurofeedback training aims to present impulsivity and hyperactivity features measured in the brain activity in real time to a child suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) for him/her to learn how to self-regulate them. As was discussed in previous posts this technique has turned out to be a good complement to medication inducing […]
As I explained in one of my previous posts, a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a direct communication pathway connecting the brain to a computer or other external device. BCIs do not depend on the brain’s normal action pathways through peripheral nerves and muscles. This makes them the ideal technology to develop systems assisting or […]