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Vishal Rawji

@vishrawji.bsky.social

140 followers 120 following 12 posts

1) Post-doctoral fellow at Imperial College London; 2) NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurology at King's College London MBPhD from University College London Interests in human motor control including disease, neuromotor interfacing

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Preprint out -- using intramuscular microelectrode arrays to detect residual motoneuron activity in tetraplegic spinal cord injury, and then using that activity for control
Credit to my other co-first authors Agnese Grison and Ciara Gibbs
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www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Multidimensional motoneuron control using intramuscular microelectrode arrays in tetraplegic spinal cord injury

Loss of hand function after spinal cord injury (SCI) significantly impairs independence and quality of life. Although residual muscle activity recorded on the skin can provide intuitive control signal...

www.medrxiv.org

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · 1d

🚨Big news!🚨
The lab is relocating to Lisbon, joining a great team of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists, and the Neurotechnology Warehouse, a new initiative to bridge basic and translational research.

I'll be sharing postdoc openings soon. Come join us in this new incarnation of the lab!

Champalimaud Research @champalimaudr.bsky.social · 2d

🧠🎼 What does it take to restore movement? Neuroscientist and engineer, @juangallego.bsky.social, joins the new Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology at the Champalimaud Foundation.

🔗 Find out more in this interview: www.fchampalimaud.org/news/juan-al...

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · Sep 5

‪@benhayden.bsky.social‬
@tyrellturing.bsky.social‬
@jmgrohneuro.bsky.social‬
@pessoabrain.bsky.social
I see a lot of talk on here about how we should avoid
"x does y" talk because the brain is "a dynamic, reverberant, reciprocally interconnected system".
But this does not follow.
A thread...

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Jörn Diedrichsen @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social · Jul 21

Congrats to @alighavampour.bsky.social and @mnlmrc.bsky.social for developing a new paradigm for hand synergy learning. If you are looking for a motor skill task that seems impossibly difficult and really needs to learning to be mastered, here it is:
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....

A paradigm to study the learning of muscle activity patterns outside of the natural repertoire | Journal of Neurophysiology | American Physiological Society

The acquisition of novel muscle activity patterns is a key aspect of motor skill learning, which can be seen, for example, when beginner musicians learn new guitar or piano chords. To study this proce...

journals.physiology.org

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social · Aug 1

🚨New paper🚨

Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.

Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Matt Perich @mattperich.bsky.social · Jul 29

Check out our new review/perspective (w/ @juangallego.bsky.social & Devika Narain) on neural manifolds in the brain! It was a lot of fun to think through these ideas over the past couple of years, and I'm excited it's finally out in the world!

🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
📄: rdcu.be/ex8hW

A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience

Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...

www.nature.com

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

This work was co-supervised by @juangallego.bsky.social and Dario Farina, and sponsored in part by Meta.

We're extremely grateful for our participants, their carers, Aspire, the Spinal Injuries Association and Hillingdon Hospital for their patience and support.

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

In sum, we provide proof-of-concept of an implantable system that uses high-density intramuscular microelectrode arrays to enable accurate control in individuals with tetraplegic SCI 11/n

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

We then re-routed the activity of a single motoneuron to control a wearable, soft exoskeleton that uses motors and wires to pull on rings placed on joints. In doing so, this participant could grasp a pen and deform a sponge 10/n

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

One could also use two independent motoneurons to control a cursor in 2D (one controlling the x-axis position and the other controlling the y-axis position) 9/n

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

And could control a single motoneuron to play Pong! 8/n

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Excitingly, both participants were able to proportionally control the activity of single motoneurons 7/n

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Interestingly, there were pairs (and even a triplet) of motoneurons that fired independently of one another, suggesting multiple degree-of-freedom control from a single array 6/n

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

We identified up to 46 motoneurons during attempted movements, despite lack of movement. Some motoneurons fired continuously (during rest and movement), likely due to spasticity. Others fired only during attempted movements.

We found far fewer with surface grids, despite having more electrodes 5/n

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

In two people with tetraplegic SCI, we use ultrasound to identify regions of spared muscle activity, then insert 40 channel microelectrode arrays to sample residual muscle activity over a large region 4/n

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Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Invasive electrodes improve the signal-to-noise ratio but only sample amount of muscle and hence reduces the likelihood of detecting residual activity 3/n

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Harnessing residual signals after SCI is a promising approach to restoring functionality. Whilst EMG (from muscles) is often detectable after SCI, it is too small and sparse to be used for control, especially when measured with surface electrodes 2/n

Vishal Rawji @vishrawji.bsky.social · Jul 18

Multidimensional motoneuron control using intramuscular microelectrode arrays in tetraplegic spinal cord injury

www.medrxiv.org

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Jaime Ibáñez @jibanez.bsky.social · Jun 27

Take a look at our recent article on neural interfaces based on EMG. We propose some new ideas regarding how one can take advantage of muscle recordings to estimate neural activity in the central nervous system. I hope you enjoy it!
lnkd.in/duAHSRB5
Temporary open link to the paper: rdcu.be/etI2K

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

lnkd.in

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

International Society for Neuroethology @neuroethology.org · Jun 24

🚨 In our world riddled with misinformation and sensationalization, we must be cautious about handling accusations of scientific misconduct in our community. Weaponizing a public internet campaign is not the way.

📖 Read "A plea for academic decency"
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A plea for academic decency - Journal of Comparative Physiology A

In an internet age when a viral sensationalist story gains far more traction than a nuanced and balanced discussion, we have become used to some politicians, media and web-based influencers bending th...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Nature @nature.com · Jun 12

Nature research paper: An instantaneous voice-synthesis neuroprosthesis

https://go.nature.com/4kLPolK

An instantaneous voice-synthesis neuroprosthesis - Nature

A brain-to-voice neuroprosthesis enables a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to synthesize his voice in real time by decoding neural activity, demonstrating the potential of brain–computer interfaces to enable people with paralysis to speak intelligibly and expressively.

go.nature.com

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Masud Husain @masudhusain.bsky.social · May 30

I'm planning to write an editorial in @brain1878.bsky.social entitled "If patients only knew".
It's about obstacles that slow down or prevent people from participating in clinical studies and the pace of initiating #ClinicalTrials. If you have experience or comments please message me and repost.

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · May 23

A pill for sleep apnea that keeps the airway open
www.science.org/content/arti... @science.org @meredithwadman.bsky.social

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Mostafa Safaie @atmostafa.bsky.social · Apr 14

Job Alert (please repost)!

We are looking to hire a Research Assistant to join us in an exciting project looking into Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and how brains learn to control them.

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Abhimanyu Mahajan @amahajanmd.bsky.social · Apr 2

Those immensely useful tasks don’t “save the world” or “revolutionize healthcare as we know it” unfortunately.

A good read: www.bmj.com/content/386/...

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Reposted by Vishal Rawji

Masud Husain @masudhusain.bsky.social · Apr 1

At @ox.ac.uk it's time for the staff survey. Here's my answer to: "What is the main thing the University could do to help you to progress your career?"
Please repost and respond similarly to the survey if you agree. It's the only way to get our points across!

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