Development of a Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interface for Neurorehabilitation

Neurological disorders, in particular Stroke, have an impact on many individuals worldwide. These individuals are often left with residual motor control in their upper limbs. Although conventional therapy can aid in recovery, it is not always accessible, and the procedures are dull for the patient. Novel methods of therapy are being developed, including Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). Although BCI research has been flourishing in the past few years, most rehabilitation applications are not yet suitable for clinical practice.This is due to the fact that BCI reliability and validation has not yet been achieved, and few clinical trials have been done with BCIs. Another crucial factor, is that modern BCIs are often comprised of inconvenient hardware and software. This is a major factor of aversion from both patients and clinicians. This Master Dissertation introduces the EmotivBCI: an easy to use platform for Electroencephalogram acquisition, processing and classification of sensorimotor rhythms with respect to motor action and motor imagery. The acquisition of EEG is done through 8 channels of the Emotiv Epoc wireless headset. Signals are pre-processed, and the 2 best combinations of channel/frequency pairs that exhibit the greatest spectral variation between the rest and action conditions are extracted for different time frames. These features are then used to build a feature matrix with 2 sets of attributes and 2 class labels. Finally the resulting feature matrix is used to train 3 different classifiers, in which the best is selected. The EmotivBCI enables users to keep record of their performances, and provides additional features to further examine training sessions. To assess the performance of the EmotivBCI, two studies were conducted with healthy individuals. The first study compares classification accuracies between two different training paradigms. The second study evaluates the progress in performance of a group of individuals after several training sessions

Glycans as Immune Checkpoints: Removal of Branched N-glycans Enhances Immune Recognition Preventing Cancer Progression

International audienceTumor growth is accompanied with dramatic changes in the cellular glycome, such as the aberrant expression of complex branched N-glycans. However, the role of this protumoral N-glycan in immune evasion and whether its removal contributes to enhancement of immune recognition and to unleashing an antitumor immune response remain elusive. We demonstrated that branched N-glycans are used by colorectal cancer cells to escape immune recognition, instructing the creation of immunosuppressive networks through inhibition of IFN gamma. The removal of this "glycan-mask" exposed immunogenic mannose glycans that potentiated immune recognition by DC-SIGN-expressing immune cells, resulting in an effective antitumor immune response. We revealed a glycoimmune checkpoint in colorectal cancer, highlighting the therapeutic efficacy of its deglycosylation to potentiate immune recognition and, thus, improving cancer immunotherapy

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved