Tuesday, 22 April 2025 at Noon | 490 Cory Hall
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Professor Preeya Khanna
Neuroscience, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute | UC Berkeley
Host: Jon Candelaria
ABSTRACT
Dexterous movement is a hallmark of human motor ability, enabling us to interact skillfully with our environment. The loss of this capability due to movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease or stroke, strips individuals of independence and quality of life. This talk explores the neural underpinnings of dexterity, focusing on how the nervous system integrates sensory and motor signals to achieve precise control. We then examine how these mechanisms break down in movement disorders, leading to impaired motor function. Finally, we turn to neuroengineering technologies which aim to restore movement in affected individuals. By leveraging advances in neural interfaces and wearable systems, we are seeking to design systems to repair motor function. Overall, we highlight our highly interdependent scientific and translational goals to understand and restore complex movement.
BIO
Preeya Khanna received a B.S.E in Bioengineering and Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, and a Ph.D in the Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley and UCSF in 2017. She completed her postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology at UCSF. Her research combines sensorimotor systems neuroscience, network modeling, and neurotechnology development with the goal of uncovering principles of how distributed brain networks coordinate to control skillful dexterous movements. These principles are then leveraged to design neurophysiologically-grounded brain-machine interface therapies such as neurofeedback and myoelectric feedback paradigms, and neuromodulation approaches for restoring movement control in patients with damaged sensorimotor systems.
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