At Brown University, coordinated research in the Neuroscience laboratory of John P. Donoghue and Michael Black's team in the Department of Computer Science is enabling the development of real-time interfaces for the control of neural prostheses by individuals in the Cyberkinetics, Inc, clinical trial of BrainGate directed by Leigh Hochberg.

We are actively investigating the practical issues involved in  enabling direct neural control of devices such as Windows-based assistive technology software, wheelchairs, and state-of-the-arm robotic arms and hands. While the system's technical challenges are significant, the core of the research involves the development of principles and algorithms for decoding detailed motor intentions from populations of neurons recorded from motor areas of neocortex. Our basic research in motor equivalence and cortical networks helps us understand the framework that brains use to represent our motor intentions. Work with Michael Black's group is consistently improving our methods for decoding those neural representations in real time.

In addition, we are working with Y-K Song and Arto Nurmikko's engineering team to design and test new brain-implantable microelectronic devices for recording and wirelessly transmitting neural activity. The system is nearing in-vivo test phase and will eliminate cables which currently tether patients to the decoding computers, and will improve long-term reliability of the implantable system by replacing intracranial wire connections with biostable fiber optic technology.

Ph.D. Neuroscience Wake Forest University School of Medicine, 2003
M.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 1987
B.S. Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 1985

University of Texas at Austin, MS Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1987
Thesis: "Monitoring and controlling surgical temperatures during laser angioplasty using infrared feedback"

Stanford University: BS in Electrical Engineering,1985

Academic Appointments

  1/06 - present  :  Research Scientist, Rehabilitation R&D Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center
  8/03 - present  :  Research Fellow, Brown University Department of Neuroscience
10/97 - 9/00       :  NIH NRSA predoctoral fellow, Wake Forest Univ School of Medicine
7/94   - 1/95       :  Lecturer, UCSD Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept

Industry Positions
6/93 - 8/95 :  Sr. Principal Engineer & Project Leader,  AT&T  Corp,  Rancho Bernardo, CA
4/90 - 6/93 :  Principal Engineer, ASIC and Memory System Design,  NCR JDO, Torrey Pines, CA
9/87 - 4/90 :  Engineer, Custom VLSI  Development,  NCR Corp,  Rancho Bernardo, CA
9/86 - 9/87 :  Research Engineer, Multichip Module VLSI Fabrication,  MCC,  Austin, TX

Patents
6/92     :  Canadian Patent # 1,304,459:   “ECL-to-CMOS Converter”

6/90     :  United States Patent # 4,888,501:  “ECL-to-CMOS Converter”

Teaching Experience
2005 - present : Lecturer, Brown Medical School, Neuroanatomy
3/01 - 12/02    :  Instructor & 2nd degree black belt, World Tae Kwon Do Association
7/94 - 1/95      :  Lecturer, UCSD ECE Dept, Microelectronics System Design (28 lectures)
9/86 - 6/86      : Teaching Assistant, U. Texas Austin Elec & Comp Eng Dept, Microelectronics Lab

Memberships
Society for Neurosience
Society for the Neural Control of Movement
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society of IEEE
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society of IEEE, Providence Chapter (founding member)
Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES)
Americal Association for the Advancement of Science

Publications

Song Y-K, Patterson WR, Bull CW, Serruya MD, Davitt KM, Petrica P, Viamari MA, Nurmikko AV, Fellows MR, Simeral JD and  Donoghue JP. Development of a brain implantable microsystem with infrared optical telemetry for advanced neuromotor prosthesis. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng (submitted).

Donoghue JP, Hochberg LR, Nurmikko AV, Black MJ, Simeral JD and Friehs G. Neuromotor prosthesis development. Med Health R.I. 90(1):12-15, 2007.

Song Y-K, Patterson WR, Bull CW, Beals J, Hwang N, Deangelis AP, Lay C, McKay JL, Nurmikko AV, Fellows MR, Simeral JD, Donoghue JP and Connors BW. Development of a chipscale integrated microelectrode/microelectronic device for brain implantable neuroengineering applications. IEEE Trans Neural Syst and Rehabil Eng 13(2):220-226, 2005.

Hampson RE, Simeral JD, Kelly EJ and Deadwyler SA. Tolerance to the memory disruptive effects of cannabinoids involves addaptation by hippocampal neurons. Hippocampus 13:543-556, 2002.

Hampson RE, Simeral JD and Deadwyler SA. “Keeping on track”: firing of hippocampal neurons during delayed-nonmatch-to-sample performance. J Neurosci, 22:RC198 (1-6), 2002.

Hampson RE, Simeral JD and Deadwyler SA. What ensemble recordings reveal about functional hippocampal cell encoding. Progress in Brain Research, 130:345-57, 2001.

Hampson RE, Simeral JD and Deadwyler SA. Distribution of spatial and nonspatial information in dorsal hippocampus. Nature, 402, 610-614, 1999.

Sanwo IJ, Simeral JD and Milby GH. High-Speed ECL-to-CMOS and CMOS-to-ECL Converters. NCR Journal, 4:2,10-16, 1990.

Abstracts

Simeral JD, Kim S-P, Black MJ, Donoghue JP, Hochberg LR. Ensemble spiking activity as a source of cortical control signals in individuals with tetraplegia. BMES Annual Fall Meeting. 2007 (accepted).

Donoghue JP, Simeral JD, Kim  S-P, Friehs GM, Hochberg LR and Black MJ. Toward standardized assessment of pointing devices for brain-computer interfaces. 2007 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2007. Online. (accepted).

Simeral JD, Kim  S-P, Donoghue JP, Black MJ, Friehs GM, Brown RH Jr., Krivickas LS and Hochberg LR. Directional tuning in motor cortex of a person with ALS. 2007 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2007. Online. (accepted).

Kim  S-P, Simeral JD, Hochberg LR, Friehs GM, Donoghue JP, and Black MJ. Point-and-click cursor control by a person with tetraplegia using an intracortical neural interface system. 2007 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2007. Online. (accepted).

Song Y-K, Borton DA, Patterson WR, Bull CW, Nurmikko AV, Simeral JD, and Donoghue JP. Wireless implantable cortical recording microsystem for advanced neuroengineering applications. BMES Annual Fall Meeting, 2007 (accepted).

Song Y-K, Patterson WR, Bull CW, Borton D, Li Y, Nurmikko AV, Simeral JD, and Donoghue JP. A brain implantable microsystem with hybrid RF/IR telemetry for advanced neuroengineering applications. 29th IEEE EMBS Annual International Conference, Lyon, France. 2007.

Kim  S-P, Simeral JD, Hochberg LR, Donoghue JP, Friehs GM and Black MJ. Multi-state decoding of point-and-click control signals from motor cortical activity in a human with tetraplegia. 3rd International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, Kohala Coast, HI. 2007.

Simeral, JD, Dushanova JA, Donoghue JP. Wrist and arm movement direction are robustly represented in overlapping populations of monkey MI arm area neurons. Program No. 451.17. 2006 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Atlanta, GA: Society for Neuroscience, 2006. Online.

Serruya MD, Song Y-K, Patterson WR, Bull CW, Nurmikko AV, Fellows MR, Simeral JD, Donoghue JP. Development of a brain implantable microsystem with infrared optical telemetry for advanced neuromotor prosthesis. Program No. 148.15. 2006 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Atlanta, GA: Society for Neuroscience, 2006. Online.

Kim S, Simeral JD, Donoghue JP, Hochberg LR, Friehs G, Mukand JA, Chen D, Black MJ.  A comparison of decoding models for imagined motion from human motor cortex Program No. 256.11. 2006 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Atlanta, GA: Society for Neuroscience, 2006. Online.

Kim S-P, Simeral JD, Kenkins OC, Donoghue JP, Black MJ. Finding directional movement representations in motor cortical neural populations using nonlinear manifold learning. World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, 2006; Seoul, Korea, 2006.

Song Y-K. Patterson WR, Bull CW, Nurmikko AV, Fellows MR, Simeral JD, Serruya MD, Donoghue JP. Development of an On-Chip Microelectronic Interface for Brain Implantable Neuroengineering Applications. BMES Annual Meeting, Chicago. Biomed Eng Soc, 2006.

Simeral JD, Dushanova JA and Donoghue JP. Effector specificity in the firing activity of simultaneously-recorded neurons in monkey MI during wrist and arm movements. Neural Control of Movement (NCM) Annual Meeting, 2005.

Simeral JD, Dushanova JA and Donoghue JP. Encoding of wrist and arm movements by simultaneously-recorded populations of neurons in MI motor cortex of monkeys. Program No. 872.17. 2004 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner. Washington, DC : Society for Neuroscience, 2004.

Dushanova JA, Simeral JD and Donoghue JP. Task-related changes in neuronal ensembles in motor cortex of monkeys during arm and wrist tracking. Program No. 872.16. 2004 Abstract Viewer and Itinerary Planner. Washington, DC : Society for Neuroscience, 2004.

Simeral JD,  Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Characterization of single-trial hippocampal ensemble codes in rats performing a delayed nonmatch-to-sample task. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 27, Program 953.13, 2001.

Simeral JD,  Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Neural encoding in rat hipocampus and associated structures during short-term memory of images in a visual delayed match-to-sample task. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 26:171.11, 2000.

Hampson RE, Simeral JD  and Deadwyler SA. Information content analysis reveals a functional linkage between hippocampal and subicular neurons during the delay of DNMS trials. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 26:173.8, 2000.

Deadwyler SA, Jordan ER, Simeral JD, Smulders TV and Hampson RE. Tolerance to, and precipitated withdrawal from, chronic cannabinoid effects on memory are reflected in task-revelant encoding by ensembles of hippocampal neurons. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 26:773.13, 2000.

Simeral JD,  Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Neural encoding in rat hipocampus during  discrimination of images in a visual delayed match-to-sample task. WNC Soc Neurosci Annual Meeting, 2000.

Simeral JD,  Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Derivation of task-relevant ensemble codes on single delayed-nonmatching-to-sample trials. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 25(2):1386, 1999.

Simeral JD,  Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Derivation of task-relevant ensemble codes on single delayed-nonmatching-to-sample trials. WNC Soc Neurosci Annual Meeting, 1999.

Pons TP, Simeral JD, Yen Y-F, Hernandez L, Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Independent components analysis of functional MRI during visual & motor activations: derivation of variance sources and comparision with statistical parametric mapping. Soc Neurosci Abstr, 25(1):1137, 1999.

Simeral JD, Pons TP, Yen Y-F, Hernandez L, Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Comparison of independent component analysis (ICA) and statistical parametric mapping  (SPM) procedures in an fMRI visual activation study. In: Proc Int Soc Magn Res Med, 8th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 1999.

Simeral JD, Hampson RE and Deadwyler SA. Derivation of spatial vs temporal connectivity from population analyses in ensembles of hippocampal neurons. Soc Neurosci Abstr,  24(2):1908, 1998.

Simeral JD, Deadwyler SA and Hampson RE. Understanding Patterns of Activity in Neuronal Ensembles: A Nonlinear Systems Approach. WNC Soc Neurosci Annual Meeting, 1997.

Hampson RE, Rawley J, Simeral JD, Byrd DR, Brooks JK and Deadwyler SA. Disruption of encoding but not recognition by cannabinoids via differential action on hippocampal memory circuits. Soc Neurosci Abstr 23:509,1997.