Biosciences and Translational Research
The Department carries out important research in the field of Bioengineering and works closely with the Trinity Centre for Bioengineering (TCBE). Work centres on Neural Engineering, which is carried out in collaboration with the School of Medicine and on medical instrumentation for non-invasive clinical measurements.
Neural Engineering
Neural engineering forms the interface area between electronics, photonics, engineering, and mathematics, on the one hand, and the nervous system at the molecular, cellular, organ, and systemic level, on the other. Research in this area involves the design, development and evaluation of biomedical signal processing methods to generate active implantable devices for use in neural engineering applications. The current focus of the Neural Engineering research group is developing system level implementations of theoretically-sound methods of cognitive neuro-rehabilitation through the partnership of Cognitive Neuroscience, Medical Gerontology and Electronic Engineering. The group specialises in the development of quantitative measures of brain function through the analysis of the structural and functional components, together with their interactions, that give rise to aspects of brain function. This involves EEG, fMRI, DTI and MEG based analysis.
Principal Investigator:
- Prof. R. Reilly - neurological modelling, neural engineering, EEG analysis
Biomedical Instrumentation
This work involves the design and development of biomedical instrumentation primarily for clinical applications, in particular the non-invasive measurement of ECG, blood pressure, heart-rate and other vital diagnostic functions. Current emphasis is on the development of dry or un-gelled electrode recording of the ECG and the design of suitable electrode interfacing systems and amplifiers. Precision instruments for the generation of biomedical signals are also under development.
Principal Investigator:
- Dr. M. J. Burke - medical instrumentation, transducer interfacing, signal synthesis.