Please join us for the March MIT.nano Seminar Series:
Dion Khodagholy
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Columbia University
Date: Monday, March 15, 2021
Time: 3pm - 4pm EDT
Location: Zoom webinar
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Abstract
As our understanding of the brain’s physiology and pathology progresses, increasingly sophisticated technologies are required to advance discoveries in neuroscience and develop more effective approaches to treating brain disease. There is a tremendous need for advanced materials solutions at the biotic/abiotic interface to improve the spatiotemporal resolution of neuronal recording and stimulation. Organic electronic devices offer a unique approach to these challenges, due to their mixed ionic/electronic conduction, mechanical flexibility, enhanced biocompatibility, and capability for drug delivery.
Khodagholy and fellow researchers designed, developed, and characterized conformable organic electronic devices in the form of electrodes, ion gated transistors, conformable batteries, and ionic communication units to efficiently interface with the brain and acquire neurophysiological activity not previously accessible with recordings from the brain surface. These devices have facilitated large-scale rodent neurophysiology experiments and uncovered a novel oscillatory interaction. The biocompatibility of the devices allowed intra-operative recording from patients undergoing epilepsy and deep brain stimulation surgeries, highlighting the translational capacity of this class of neural interface devices.
In parallel, they are developing the high-speed electronics and embedded acquisition and storage systems required to make high channel count, chronic neurophysiological recording from animals and human subjects possible. This multidisciplinary approach will enable the development of new devices based on organic electronics, with broad applicability to the understanding of physiologic and pathologic network activity, control of brain-machine interfaces, and therapeutic closed-loop devices.
Biography
Dion Khodagholy is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. He received his Master’s degree from the University of Birmingham (UK) in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering. This was followed by a second Master’s degree in Microelectronics at the Ecole des Mines. He attained his PhD in Microelectronics at the Department of Bioelectronics (BEL) of the Ecole des Mines (France).
Khodagholy's postdoctoral research at New York University, Langone Medical Center was focused on large-scale cortical acquisition and analysis. His research explores the interface of electronics and the brain in the context of both applied and discovery sciences, with the ultimate goal of new innovations in device engineering and neuroscience methods to improve diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric disease.