The GRID Lab is interested in using electrocorticography (ECoG) to answer basic neuroscience questions as well as to develop tools for clinical and rehabilitative applications. ECoG, which is used for long-term clinical monitoring of epilepsy patients, provides a unique opportunity to collect intracranial cortical data from awake, behaving humans. The group, under the direction of Dr. Ojemann, represents researchers from a wide range of backgrounds including neurosurgery, neurology, rehabilitative medicine, engineering, neuroscience, and physics.

 

A major focus of the group is brain-computer interfaces (BCI); current projects include direct electrical stimulation for inducing neural plasticity and providing artificial sensory feedback, learning during a BCI task, the neural representation of error signals, and the use of ECoG activity to form a motor output control signal. Also under investigation are more fundamental questions about the cortical representation of movement planning, the dynamics of cognition, language, and higher-order nonlinear interactions between brain areas. Other projects include the use of machine learning to automatically detect and classify activity states based off of brain data, integration of ECoG and fMRI for resting state analysis, and studies of temporal lobe epilepsy. The laboratory employs a wide variety of techniques and approaches, including time frequency approaches such as wavelets and Fourier analysis, signal processing, dimensionality reduction through Principal Component Analysis and Dynamic Mode Decomposition, machine learning, statistical analyses, and connectivity metrics such as Phase Amplitude Coupling and Phase Locking value.