Engineering brain activity patterns for therapeutics

Speaker: Mehmet Fatih Yanık, Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, ETH Zürich

Summary: Brain networks are disrupted in numerous disorders. Prof. Dr. Yanık will show how the aberrant brain-wide activity patterns can be corrected by targeting distinct network motifs with multiple neuromodulators using a vertebrate model of human epilepsy and autism. This systematic approach rescues behavior unlike any other. Next, he will present two technologies to realize such network corrections in humans: (1) Biocompatible ultraflexible tentacle electrodes that allow single-neuron-resolution network recordings simultaneously from many brain areas, where we can track inter-areal neuronal ensembles year long, and we are currently starting the first human acute recordings. (2) AU-FUS technology that allows us to non-invasively deliver drugs/RNA to specific brain circuits with 1'300x enhanced focal concentration with millimeter precision across the BBB, we are performing the first pre-clinical large animal studies. He will show how targeting dorsal ACC reduces chronic anxiety without motor side effects.