Innovative projects at the first Forum on Brain Health and Neurorestoration

Forum on Brain Health and Neurorestoration (Autor: Jordi Pareto)

Over 100 researchers participated in the first Forum on Brain Health and Neurorestoration, organised by the UAB, the CIBER-BBN, the UMH and the Institut Guttmann. The forum is the first joint initiative in this area to design research proposal in Europe.

10/09/2014

Over fifteen innovative projects were presented, including the development of exoskeleton robots to treat neuromuscular diseases in children, wireless platforms to monitor and stimulate the brain, and hybrid machine-brain interfaces to make neurorestoration easier from home. A humanoid robot capable created by the firm PAL Robotics in Barcelona in collaboration with the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) was also presented. The robot is capable of learning from its interactions with people.

The purpose of the forum, which took place at the UAB-Casa Convalescència, was to promote the creation of international consortiums which can work together in the preparation and presentation of proposals for future calls under the Horizon 2020 programme. Its working areas included mental health and neurorehabilitation, cognitive stimulation, non-invasive monitoring of human activities, robotics applied to neurorestoration and bioengineering focused on achieving personal autonomy.

Researchers from Spain, France, Italy, England, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia and Korea will be participating in the forum. Some thirty European firms were also present, as was Géraldine Andrieux-Gustin, coordinator of the project COWIN (Converging resources to support the value creation in Europe of microsystems and smart miniaturised systems research projects). The project, financed by the European Union, makes it possible to commercialise the results of collaborative research projects conducted in the field of Miniature Intelligent Systems.