U.S.-Brazil Planning Visit: Development of a device for real time interaction with the brain. 0822533 Diego Restrepo, University of Colorado at Denver, HSC
The proposed planning visit will establish a bilateral collaboration between U.S. and Brazilian scientists to develop novel engineering solutions for the study of brain function in awake behaving animals in real time. The hosts for the planning visit are Drs. Fátima de Medeiros, José da Graça, and Marcelo de Souza from Brazil's Universidade Federal do Ceara. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Denver's Health Sciences Center have applied computerized technologies, such as olfactometers, extracellular multiunit recording, and cerebral microstimulation to study the brain and olfactory behavior in awake mice. The proposed collaboration will expand upon previous work to study real time interaction with the brain where extraneous circuits evaluate neural output and affect neuronal firing in real time. The Brazilian collaborators will provide computer expertise to improve the speed and real time efficiency of the olfactometer.