Application of electroencephalographic techniques to the study of visual impact of renewable energies.

Much is currently being studied on the negative visual impact associated to the installation of large wind turbines or photovoltaic farms. However, methodologies for quantitatively assessing landscape impact are scarce. In this work we used electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings to investigate the brain activity of 14 human volunteers when looking at the same landscapes with and without wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants. Our results showed no significant differences for landscapes with solar power systems or without them, and the same happened for wind turbines, what was in agreement with their subjective scores. However, there were clear and significant differences when looking at landscapes with and without nuclear power plants. These differences were more pronounced around a time window of 376-407 msec and showed a clear right lateralization for the pictures containing nuclear power plants. Although more studies are still needed, these results suggest that EEG recordings can be a useful procedure for measuring visual impact.

Human neuroblastoma cultures for biorobotics.

This paper introduces a new biorobotic system using human neuroblastoma cultures and centre of area learning for basic robotic guidance. Multielectrode Arrays Setups have been designed for direct culturing neural cells over silicon or glass substrates, providing the capability to stimulate and record simultaneously populations of neural cells. The main objective of this work will be to control a robot using this biological neuroprocessor and a new simple centre of area learning scheme. The final system could be applied for testing how chemicals affect the behaviour of the robot or to establish the basis for new hybrid optogenetic neuroprostheses based on stimulating optically genetic-modified neurons.

A customizable multi-channel stimulator for cortical neuroprosthesis.

A simple architecture for a fully customizable cortical stimulator is presented. The whole device uses a 3D penetrating multielectrode array, which will be implanted in primary visual cortex (V1), offering different signal amplitude and waveforms sets. The system has been proved for injecting current (charge) in a safe, secure and precise way during acute animal experimentation. The architecture is based on a transistor based current injection stage and a microprocessor circuit with programmable waveforms. The dynamic characteristic of the stimulator provide the possibility to adapt the current level to the different working electrodes and tissue impedances. The system is specific tailored for a cortical visual neuroprosthesis for the blind.