Measurements in Neuroscience: Expanding the Possibilities

Reyan MT Atassi
Blog Post #2
12/12/2018

Measurements in Neuroscience: Expanding the Possibilities

Earlier this semester, Dr. Behmer joined us at Loyola to discuss action sequencing and neurological behavior, he analyzed these experimentally using typing as a behavior he could establish and observe in his test subjects. The article I found also discusses neuroscientists who had a similar idea and teamed up with engineers to try and understand how the brain controls movement. Both Dr. Behmer and the article focus on electrical activity in the brain and body, measuring waves in order to try and hone our understanding of the body’s fine motor control. In Behmer’s experiment, he focused on MEPs and motor control involved in typing with specific exercises in order to gain precise and consistent measurements to compare. The Georgia Tech School experts used devices to measure electrical action potentials in the muscles of songbirds and rodents to gain a better understanding of motor control related disorders for breathing.
Behmer’s presentation really dares my mind to think about the possibilities of neuroscience related to motor control. His experiment that he published was all about perfecting fine measurement of parallel activation and MEP (Motor Evoked Potentials) and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). Using typewriting, a very common tool and skill in the modern world, Dr. Brehmer set up the participants, right handed females, and measured response activation while they typed several letters. The MEP amplitude per trial was determined and then an average was taken for each participant tested. If scientists can perfect measurements of different motor control behaviors, machines could be crafted to read and understand those measurements to provide care for people suffering from neurological disorders or limb loss. This potential is amazing but it could also do more than just assist those suffering from problems but also open the gateway for new technologies that could read our brain waves to predict what we are going to do.
The Sober Lab and Muhammad Bakir’s lab from the article I found focused on technology to do something similar but instead of motor control in the hands they focused on muscle control in the lungs associated with breathing. The device they used was internal and measured the action potential of muscles. The device sounds amazing, according to the article it can measure a wide variety of action potentials from neural signals that control muscles. It would also allow experimenters to record electrical signals from multiple neurons as animals develop skills and behaviors. The team went on to create a more formidable device, one that could hold over a thousand electrodes to record single cellular data from many muscles. They compared the sophistication of such a device to that of designing a skyscraper.
The possibilities of this device not only for experiments like Behmer’s also all of neuroscience is simply astounding. Maybe not the exact same design of course but if a similar measurement with a similar scope could be done for Behmer’s experiment and others it could open many doors for neuroscientists.


“Georgia Institute of Technology.” Georgia Tech's Research Horizons Magazine, 7 Aug. 2018, www.rh.gatech.edu/news/609369/neuroscientists-team-engineers-explore-how-brain-controls-movement.