Krishna V. Shenoy, Ph.D.

We speak at a rate of roughly 160 words every minute. That speed is incredibly difficult to achieve for speech brain implants.

Decades in the making, speech implants use tiny electrode arrays inserted into the brain to measure neural activity, with the goal of transforming thoughts into text or sound. They’re invaluable for people who lose their ability to speak due to paralysis, disease, or other injuries. But they’re also incredibly slow, slashing word count per minute nearly ten-fold. Like a slow-loading web page or audio file, the delay can get frustrating for everyday conversations.

A team led by Drs. Krishna Shenoy and Jaimie Henderson at Stanford University is closing that speed gap… Continue reading.

Six Stanford professors elected to the National Academy of Medicine

The National Academy of Medicine has elected six professors at Stanford University to its membership.

They are among the 90 regular members and 10 international members elected this year to the academy, which provides policymakers, professionals, business leaders and the public with independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on issues related to health and the biomedical sciences.

New members are elected by current members through a process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care and public health… Continue reading.

For many years, Stanford researchers have been working towards an advance in technology that could one day help people with paralysis regain use of their limbs, and allow amputees to use their thoughts to control the wireless prostheses and to interact with computers.

The brain-computer interface is a device that is implanted beneath the skull on the surface of a patients brain (the cerebral cortex). This implant allows the connection between the human nervous system and an electronic device that permits the patient to regain some control of their limbs, for instance, helping restore motor control to a person with a spinal cord injury… Continue reading.

Ever wonder why people talk with their hands? We all do — across cultures, throughout history. Now, a serendipitous discovery building on years of meticulous work tells us what may be the reason — or at least a reason — for it.

The discovery may also portend a potential breakthrough for those with aphasia, the brain-damage-induced loss of ability to speak, which affects one in 250 people.

Some years ago, a team of Stanford scientists led by neurosurgeon Jaimie Henderson, MD, and electrical engineer Krishna Shenoy, PhD, implanted baby-aspirin-sized multi-electrode arrays in the brains of study participants who suffered from severe limb weakness. These arrays, owing to work in Shenoy’s lab, were capable of deciphering signals in the paralyzed participants’ motor cortex: the part of the brain that controls voluntary motion… Continue reading.

New clinical trial results show that people with paralysis who have been equipped with a technologically advanced, baby-aspirin-sized brain implant can learn to directly operate an off-the-shelf computer tablet, just by thinking about making cursor movements and clicks on a wireless mouse paired to the device.

The implant-enabled trial participants were able to carry out real-world, real-time activities from web browsing or sending text messages and emails to shopping online, e-chatting, selecting videos and even playing music on a piano application.

In all cases, the tablet devices were entirely untweaked and had all pre-loaded accessibility software turned off… Continue reading.

Carnegie Mellon University will award the sixth annual Andrew Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences to Krishna V. Shenoy, the Hong Seh and Vivian W. M. Lim Professor of Engineering at Stanford University. Shenoy directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab and co-directs the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory, which aims to help restore lost motor function to people with paralysis.

The Carnegie Prize, given by the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, recognizes trailblazers in the mind and brain sciences whose research has helped advance the field and its applications. The CNBC will present the award to Shenoy at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 18, in the Simmons Auditorium A, Tepper Building. As part of the award ceremony, Shenoy will present a talk on “Brain-machine Interfaces: From Basic Science and Engineering to Clinical Trials… Continue reading.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the pending induction of Krishna V. Shenoy, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Electrical Engineering, and, by courtesy, Bioengineering and Neurobiology, Stanford University, to its College of Fellows. Dr. Shenoy was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows For remarkable discoveries about the neural mechanisms underlying motor control as the basis of new advanced brain-machine interfaces for motor prosthetics.