Since its inception, Robotics has had a profound impact on our understanding of how the brain constructs movements, processes sensory information and adapts to variable environments. In more recent times it has entered the clinical domain of sensory-motor rehabilitation for survivors of stroke and other disabling neurological conditions.
The proposed workshop is intended to organize a vigorous debate between experts in robotics, in rehabilitation research and in the basic neuroscience of the sensory-motor system with the dual purpose of enhancing the integration of these disciplines and developing new international collaborations between centers of excellence for Neurotechnologies and Rehabilitation in the United States and Italy. Therefore, the general goal of the workshop will be to promote the progress of science in the critical area where robotics and neuroscience are going to meet and interact, with a specific emphasis on state of the art advances in the national health, in relation with the increasing percentage of senior citizens in all industrialized countries of the world. Moreover, the project will advance the rehabilitation field strengthening the leadership of US research.
The debate on the hot issues of Advanced Robotics and Robotic Neurorehabilitation will be organized by scientists from two institutions, namely the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) - the leading US hospital for rehabilitation research - and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) - the leading Italian research center for a broad spectrum of advanced technologies, including neurorehabilitation, robotics and nanotechnology. The interaction between these two research centers is intended to be a seed for developing a broader collaborative network of US and Italian researchers in neurorehabilitation science and technology. The significance of this initiative stems from its potential to enhance and maintain the close contiguity of insights from basic neuroscience with the ingenuity of rapid technological developments in the clinical domain. It is expected that this tight interaction will serve to promote the recovery of lost abilities and independence in the disabled population, while expanding the intellectual and educational domains for current and future generations of researchers in neural engineering.
The three-days workshop will include four discussion sessions, on the following themes:
1. Sensory-motor control and haptic interactions. 2. Learning and motor cognition. 3. Human/machine interactions. 4. Neuroprosthetics and rehabilitation
Each theme will be introduced by brief presentations from IIT and RIC experts, followed by more detailed demonstrations and descriptions of key scientific and technological issues. A group of panelists will guide the discussion, inclusive of all participants, during and at the end of the meeting, by pointing at specific unresolved problems and future challenges. Participation of junior scientists will be particularly encouraged both during the meeting and through the preparation of articles that will be collected in the submission for a special issue of Frontiers Research Topics. On the third day, principal investigators from both institutions will visit the IIT laboratories. There, a discussion of the perspective collaborations that have emerged in the previous two days will conclude the workshop.
