An Ultrasonic Brain-Computer Interface: Using Math and Sound to Listen to the Brain

Monday February 13 at 4pm in Olin 201. Whitney Griggs, a Caltech MD-PhD candidate and Josephine de Karman Fellow, will discuss ways to apply the mathematical sciences in biomedical career paths, with a focus on computational and translational neuroscience. Using interactive case studies, he will discuss his own journey from learning mathematical reasoning at Whitman to applying these mathematical skills to the design of ultrasonic brain-computer interfaces. Whitney will highlight several key aspects of this project, including converting radiofrequency data into ultrasound images, implementing real-time neural decoders, and using Euclidean transformations to stabilize the neural decoder across multiple months.

 

BIO:  Whitney is currently a 6th year MD-PhD candidate in the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program. Since 2001, he has been interested in brain-computer interfaces, and, after 22 years of fortuitous events, he is now pursuing a PhD where he investigates ways to improve brain-computer interfaces for clinical applications. He plans to pursue clinical specialization in restorative neurosurgery where he can apply his passion for neuroscience and data science into novel therapeutics for patients with neuropsychiatric illnesses. Before starting in his MD-PhD program, he was a Postbaccalaureate Fellow at the National Institutes of Health for three years where he researched how value and novelty are encoded in the brain. He graduated from Whitman in 2013 with a double major in BBMB and Applied Mathematics. Outside of research, Whitney enjoys exploring the outdoors, including trail running, hiking, and attempting to surf.