Through the generosity of the Bertarelli Foundation in Switzerland, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) will sponsor research fellowships for HMS medical students during the summer of 2012. The Bertarelli program was conceived with neuro-engineering and translational neuroscience in mind (such as neural prosthetics), but can be construed to include broad areas of molecular, cellular, systems and computational neuroscience. The program would thus be ideal for students interested in applied and basic neuroscience.
The EPFL is a dynamic, world-leading technical institute with tremendous strengths in broad areas applicable to the Bertarelli program, such as engineering, applied physics, chemistry, and neuroscience. HMS students will coordinate with EPFL faculty to work in particular EPFL labs during the summer. A list of participating EPFL faculty, along with descriptions of faculty research interests, can be viewed here.
The EPFL is located in Lausanne, Switzerland, a beautiful and historic city nestled among the Alps on the shores of Lake Geneva. HMS students will receive a stipend of $2500 per 4-week block (up to $7500 for the summer), plus round-trip travel expenses to Lausanne.
To apply for a Bertarelli Summer Research Fellowship at the EPFL, students should submit electronic copies of a resume, undergraduate and medical school grade transcripts, names and contact information for two references, and a two-page (maximum) statement describing previous research experience and current research interests relevant to the Bertarelli Foundation program, to sally_andrews@hms.harvard.edu.
The deadline to apply for the program is Monday, January 16, 2012. Fellowships will be awarded by the end of January.

Through the generosity of the Bertarelli Foundation in Switzerland, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne has selected four students to perform their Masters research in Harvard Medical School labs over a nine-month period beginning August, 2011. The students are funded throughout their stay and bring an additional $15,000 research allowance to the lab. The Masters exchange program was conceived with neuro-engineering and translational neuroscience in mind (such as neural prosthetics), but can be construed to include broad areas of molecular, cellular, systems and computational neuroscience. The students will be engaged in research for at least 75% of their time while at Harvard Medical School, with the remaining time dedicated to other educational opportunities.

Léonie Asboth
Curriculum Vitae Faculty Mentor: Alvaro Pascual-Leone, M.D., Ph.D.
HMS Affiliated Institution and Department: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Department of Neurology
Project Title #1: “A composite intrinsic-extrinsic coordinate system for the representation of visuomotor transformation learning.”
Project Summary: When planning a movement towards a visual target, the sensorimotor nervous system is engaged to estimate the spatial location of the target and correspondingly perform the motor output to reach it. Movements can be planned in two major coordinate frames: the intrinsic, body-centered frame and the extrinsic, world-centered frame. Until now, it has been supposed that only one of these frames were engaged defined by two different starting arm configurations (that means body positioning) while they perform the same experiment. during motor control. The purpose of this study is to show that the intrinsic- and the extrinsic frames can coexist and both contribute to the motor adaptation during a visuomotor rotation movement task. Several neural substrates are supposed to be engaged in the motor learning such as the primary cortex (M1), the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA), the cerebellum and possibly the parietal cortex. In Parkinson’s disease, these motor regions are strongly affected. It is in our interest to study the internal representation of visuomotor rotation learning in PD patients compared to healthy patients. This knowledge could lead to the design of procedures for motor training and rehabilitation in a near future. Methods: Subjects are asked to perform a point-to-point arm reaching arm movement on a LCD digital monitor. Two experiments are conducted in different workspaces. Project Title #2: “Quantification of fine movement disorders in Parkinson’s disease using a digitized tablet: turning experimental findings into a clinically simple diagnostic tool”
Project Summary: A sensible method for the quantification of fine movement disorders related to Parkinson’s disease could lead to the development of a clinically useful diagnostic tool. The goal of this project is to get digitized data on micrographia by characterizing both motion and path using different paradigm. Taking away the visual feedback would reduce or eliminate corrective responses, which allows bringing to light some potential hidden motor and non-motor impairment such as reduced amplitude of movements and a greater difficulty of scaling. In order to characterize asymmetry in PD, both the right-hand and left-hand will be evaluated. It might reveal a correlation between micrographia and either the right or the left hemisphere disease. Finally, it has been observed that REM sleep disorders are a substantial risk factor for the development of PD. Though, a correlation could possibly exist between REM sleep disorder and the micrographia effect. Methods: A digitized tablet enables to measure pen movements and motion while duplicating the stimulus provided by the Psychophysics Toolbox. This toolbox provides an interface between the MATLAB source code and the external tablet. For the analysis, stage of disease, UPDRS scores, predominance of right- and left- symptoms and history of symptoms will be taken into account.

Nicolas Beuchat
Curriculum Vitae Faculty Mentor: Paolo Bonato, Ph.D.
HMS Affiliated Institution and Department: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Project Title: “Towards a better understanding of robotic neurorehabilitation therapies for the lower limbs”
Project Summary:
Current robotic neurorehabilitation strategies for motor skills in stroke patients showed large variability in their outcome. Some patients show very promising improvement in their motor skills whereas others show no improvement at all. The main issue is that the outcome of the robotic rehabilitation therapy cannot be measured in advance for now. We try to overcome this problem by predicting the outcome of a patient prior to exposing him to a robotic rehabilitation therapy. By trying to understand the motor learning and motor adaptation processes in the lower limb, we hope to be able to assess patient outcomes prior to the robotic therapy. For this assessment, we use the Lokomat robotic platform (Hocoma, Switzerland) and a variant of the Force-Field Adaptation Paradigm for the lower extremities. We also develop algorithms to assess single patient motor learning and adaptation capabilities. This should provide us insight on which aspect of motor learning and motor adaptation is important for improvement in gait retraining.

Amélie Guex
Curriculum Vitae Faculty Mentor: Daniel J. Lee, M.D., F.A.C.S.
HMS Affiliated Institution and Department: Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Department of Otology and Laryngology
Project Title: “Optical Stimulation of The Central Auditory System”
Project Summary:
The focus of this project is to study the use of pulsed laser light to stimulate the central auditory system. This novel approach may be a means to improve the efficacy of the current generation of electrically based Auditory Brainstem Implants (ABI). These devices are used in patients who have a disconnection between the peripheral and central auditory systems. This cohort usually suffers with Neurofibromatosis Type 2, an autosomal dominant condition that characteristically causes benign tumors to grow on the hearing nerves on both sides. Removal of the tumors or the tumors themselves often destroy the nerves, meaning other hearing devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants are unable to work. The ABI bypasses the cochlea and auditory nerve to directly stimulate the cochlear nucleus, the point where the hearing nerve usually enters the brainstem. Current ABI devices use electric current and patient results seem to be limited by the spread of this current, leading to non-auditory side effects and smeared hearing perception. Optically-based methods appear to stimulate neurons more selectively and may overcome some of the problems associated with non-focused stimulation. One part of this study will be the comparison of optical and electrical activation of the cochlear nucleus (CN) on a rodent model. Optically evoked auditory brainstem responses will be characterized. We will then explore the response and spatial extent of stimulation by recording Inferior Colliculus (IC) responses of the electrical and optical stimulation to determine if higher spatial selectivity can be seen during infrared neural stimulation (INS). We will also explore the use of blue light laser stimulation of the auditory system. Neurons can be activated by blue light if the subject expresses a light-sensitive ion channel protein, Channelrhodopsin-2. Patterns of responses to optical stimulation will be analysed and compared to INS in both transgenic and wild type mice. My role in the project will be to analyze the data obtained from the ABR and IC recordings. Using MATLAB based programming I will characterize the responses and frequency specificity to optimize the stimulation parameters. This work will further our understanding of the central auditory system and help to identify optimal areas for placement of auditory neuroprostheses for maximal patient benefit.

Elvira Pirondini
Curriculum Vitae Faculty Mentor: Emery N. Brown, M.D., Ph.D.
HMS Affiliated Institution and Department: Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Anesthesia
Project Title: “Developing real-time implementations of signal process algorithms for use in tracking brain states under general anesthesia”
Project Summary:
Professor Brown’s group seeks to unravel one of medicine’s big questions: how anaesthesia works. Several statistical methods and non-invasive techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG), are used in the group to answer to this question. In the past years Professor Brown’s group has made great progress on developing dynamic methods for solving the source localization problem for MEG and EEG. Source localization technique can be applied to data recorded from subjects under general anaesthesia condition in order to identify brain areas activated and brain areas switched off during this condition.
The main goal of Elvira’s project is to develop real-time implementations of the algorithms previously developed in the lab for use in tracking brain states under general anaesthesia. This research lays key group for the development of a new approach to monitoring the brain in patients undergoing general anaesthesia for surgery. The starting point of her research is an algorithm already applied for the source localization in MEG data. The algorithm has been shown to be reliable modelling the spatiotemporal covariance of MEG measurements obtained from human subjects in resting-state and estimating the effect of different stimuli in neural activity by MEG data recorded from human subjects in evoked-potential studies. As first task of Elvira’s project, she is seeking to apply the algorithm at EEG data that the group has recorded in 10 subjects across different states of general anaesthesia. The following objective will be to improve the algorithm in order to speed up its computation. The main advantage of a faster source localization would be the possibility of an extension to estimation in real-time. The core material of this project include Kalman filtering principles, EM algorithm techniques, state-space estimation paradigms and implementation of the algorithm on the super computer cluster of the group.