Mehdi Bandali

Artifact-resilient Neural Interfaces– Advanced Electronic Systems Enabling Bi-directional Brain Communication

Implantable neuromodulation devices electrically stimulate the nervous system to treat neurophysiological disorders that are resistant to pharmacological treatments. A critical research and clinical need are closed-loop neuromodulation devices that sense the patient’s state and then provide adaptive, on-demand therapy, which reduces side-effects and improves efficacy. The most important challenge in creating closed-loop systems is reliably sensing the small neural data in the presence of interference from the huge stimulation therapy, which is 1,000,000 times larger than the underlying neural signal. The goal of my research is to build a system that overcomes this challenge. So, I have designed an advanced electronic architecture that is “blind” to the stimulation artifact but has microvolt sensitivity to see the neural signal. The outcome of this research will enable the next generation of neuromodulation devices that can effectively treat conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injuries.

Mehdi Bandali is a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and he works on designing bidirectional neural interfaces. Oh, sorry, let’s start from the beginning!

His world was all about science fiction novels, poems, and art from early childhood. He loved writing stories, poems, and acting in plays. It was a dilemma whether to enter into the school of art or engineering school since he was also really good at math. He finally decided to become an electronics engineer since he knew that he can use his creative mind in that, and be the heroes in all of the science fiction novels he read. He decided to work in the bioelectronics field during his Ph.D. to help other people have a better life.

When he is not working toward his career dreams; he enjoys reading novels, playing the ukulele, hiking, swimming, floating in the river, paddle boarding, and biking.