NEURAL INTERFACING LAB - Key Persons
Dr. Christian Herff is an assistant professor in the School for Mental Health and Neuroscience at Maastricht University where he leads the Neural Interfacing Lab. His research interest lays in the application of machine learning technology to neurophysiological data for Brain-Computer Interfaces and neuroscience research. With a particular focus on the decoding of speech processes from intracranial data, he tries to improve the lives of severely paralyzed patients while simultaneously improving our understanding of complex higher order cognition. He emphasizes the ability to achieve interpretable results based on computational models. In particular, visualization of complex dynamic models, such as deep neural networks, is of interest to him.
Joaquín Amigó Vega is currently enrolled on the PhD of Computer Science, GSSI. Previously he was a Training Professor at the General Physics Department, University of Havana (Cuba) and a Research Fellow at the Complex Systems Group "Henri Poincaré", University of Havana (Cuba). He obtained a MSc in Automation Engineering from the Technological University of Havana "José Antonio Echeverría". He has published articles in international journals such as "Revista Cubana de Física" and "Review of Scientific Instruments".
Maria obtained a bachelor's degree in Biology and a master's degree in Neuroscience at University of Lisbon. For her master's research project she joined the BCI group in Utrecht (Nick Ramsey's Lab) to investigate speech decoding using fMRI at 7T. Now she is a PhD student at Maastricht University where she is investigating how the brain processes sounds. Maria's main interests are cognitive neuroscience (neural encoding and decoding of cognitive phenomena) and neurotechnology (how the intersection between brain and technology can improve the quality of lives of patients).
Research Interests
Maria is a PhD student in the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University supervised by Elia Formisano and Christian Herff. She aims to unravel the neural mechanisms that transform acoustic sound representations into meaningful source representations in human auditory cortex using laminar fMRI and stereoEEG. More details about the Aud2Sem (Auditory to Semantics) Project can be found here: NWO Project.
Maxime obtained her BSc Psychology and MSc Neuroscience & Cognition from Utrecht University. She worked as a research assistant in the BCI group in Utrecht (Nick Ramsey's Lab) before starting her PhD in March 2021 in the Neural Interfacing Lab in Maastricht. Her project is part of the Innovative Neurotechnology for Society consortium (INTENSE).
Research Interests
Her PhD project is focussed on synthesizing speech in real-time from invasive electroencephalography recordings. In particular, she's working on improving the current technology to bring it closer to a practical application for individuals who have lost the ability to speak.