News Finding: "These findings could be the basis for novel rehabilitation procedures for the many neural disorders that are characterized by improper neural activity," Yu says.
Paper Finding: A BCI offers advantages for studying learning because we can observe all of the neurons that directly control an action, and we can fully specify the mapping from neural activity to action.
News Context: Byron M. Yu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, believes this work demonstrates the utility of BCI for basic scientific studies that will eventually impact people's lives. "These findings could be the basis for novel rehabilitation procedures for the many neural disorders that are characterized by improper neural activity," Yu says. "Restoring function might require a person to generate a new pattern of neural activity.
Paper Context: Some behaviours are easier to learn than others 1-4 . A BCI offers advantages for studying learning because we can observe all of the neurons that directly control an action, and we can fully specify the mapping from neural activity to action. In the simplified network represented in Fig.