EBRAINS

Infrastructure and User Services

The past few decades have witnessed significant improvements in neurotechnologies, for instance to treat disorders of the central nervous system. In the clinical domain, these neurotechnologies target brain disorders and symptoms for which no successful pharmacological interventions have been developed. Given that the prevalence of many brain disorders increases in the aging population, progress in the fields of neuroscience and neurotechnology serves an important societal need. However, neurotechnology is a complex field of study because it depends on the convergence of multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, materials science, electronics, data science and engineering. 

Integrating these fields to realize the emerging revolution in brain-computer interfaces requires a complex, highly specialized infrastructure that can support advanced fabrication, testing and validation processes. In clinical neuroscience, treatments need to become more personalized or, in other words, patient-specific. The range of brain disorders that can be treated is increasing and includes sensory loss (e.g. blindness), paralysis, stroke and epilepsy, for which novel, expanded electrode arrays and data-processing devices are needed, which convey large amounts of information and operate using ultra-fast feedback loops. These technological innovations can simultaneously benefit fundamental neuroscience and have important clinical applications. 

Without an integrative infrastructure, efforts would remain scattered, large innovations would be stalled, and the next big steps cannot be made. The purpose of EBRAINS-Neurotech is to create this cohesive, well-supported infrastructure, integrating hardware, software and neuroscience test facilities and providing services and pipelines to researchers in the fields of fundamental and clinical neuroscience, computational modelling and materials sciences.

Examples/description of the type of research

EBRAINS-Neurotech will provide a set of facilities and services that can be flexibly combined, enabling users to design, produce and test next-generation neurotechnologies. The infrastructure’s unique features are the realizability, comprehensiveness and versatility brought about by new combinations of technologies, enabling breakthroughs by the scale and anatomic resolution of brain recording and stimulation patterns, the speed and strength of local computing power, and the longevity of brain implants. 

The innovations are harnessed in three tightly interdigitating platforms providing user services: (i) Hardware, (ii) Software, and (iii) Neuroscience and Ethics (also addressing societal and philosophical issues). The consortium will collaborate with the complementary ESFRI EBRAINS and other LSRI consortia to leverage the availability of personalized, FAIR medical and neuroscientific data, high-performance computing and computer simulations. Via its hardware and computational components, machine learning tools, federated data curation and analysis, EBRAINS-Neurotech is strongly associated with NWO’s LSRI Health and Materials Groups. 

Using the services, researchers will be able to better understand the brain by translating complex neural signals into sensory, motor and cognitive parameters, by learning how the brain converts distributed stimulation patterns into changes in behavior, perception and cognition, and by investigating how physical hardware may become smart enough to help repair deficiencies in brain and mind. EBRAINS-Neurotech will co-design advanced data curation, processing and analytics with other partners in Europe, facilitate the transfer from data to computational models, and develop new applications for brain-inspired robotics and neurotechnologies, such as brain-machine interfaces and neuroprosthetic devices for treatment of nervous system disorders.

How to access the infrastructure?

Access to EBRAINS-Neurotech is structured around three mechanisms: scientific excellence, pay-for-use, and public interest. General public access will allow any users limited access of services like data search and brain atlases. Expert scientists can request accounts for extended facilities, with access managed by a Project Manager, if need be in coordination with the AISBL in Brussels. Finally, pay-for-use will apply to high-maintenance facilities not covered by Roadmap funding, and a High-Level Support Team (HLST) will assist researchers in navigating the infrastructure.. A User Committee will review heavy resource demands.