We found a hotspot in the brain for improving human memory

Last week our lab released a seminal paper, summarizing 4 years of our work to find a target in the human brain for new therapies to restore memory functions. Previous research localized multiple areas in the brain that showed neural activities predicting successful memory performance. None of these, however, provided a discrete location and a specific neural activity that could be therapeutically modulated to restore memory functions. Çağdaş Topçu, a PhD student in our lab, found that brain rhythms of…

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BME lab receives new international funding to continue our research

We are delighted to share the results of the last competition for international research proposals under the Opus LAP (lead Agency Procedure) of the National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki). Our proposal entitled: ‘Recording and modulation of high frequency neurophysiological activities underlying encoding and recalling memories’ was ranked 4th and received financial support for three years of collaborative research together with the Medical University of Wroclaw and St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno (Czech Republic). This…

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BME lab talks by prof. Milan Brazdil and prof. Greg Worrell

We are delighted to welcome everyone interested in our research to two outstanding talks to be given by world-class neuroscience experts. Milan Brazdil, MD PhD, from St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno, Czech Republic, and Prof. Gregory Worrell MD PhD, from Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN, USA, are visiting professors in our BME lab of the BioTechMed Center, funded from the Aurum grant – Supporting International Research Team Building, as part of the Research University program (IDUB) at the Gdansk…

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BME lab research promotes clinical neuroscience in television

In the last two months we were able to reach more people than we did from the beginning of the lab’s existence. This major break-through in communicating and explaining our research to the general public was made possible thanks to a video material and a studio interview in a mainstream television show and thanks to a new documentary movie about our studies with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for treating movement disorders. The first appearance was…

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HOW DIRECT BRAIN STIMULATION AFFECTS LOW (THETA) AND FAST (GAMMA) NEURAL ACTIVITIES? NEW RESEARCH ARTICLE FROM OUR BME LAB

What happens in the brain when it is stimulated with electric current? Can we see a link between the human brain behavior during stimulation and during enhanced memory performance? In our latest article which will be published in the open-access journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering we addressed these questions using brain recordings from epilepsy patients stimulated with electric current during quiet wakefulness. In a fraction of electrode sites in the brain (1.4% on average),…

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The new year of breakthroughs and harvest for the neuroscience in Poland

The beginning of 2021 was marked by a rapid acceleration of our endeavours to pioneer intracranial brain recordings and stimulation in Poland. Together with our project partners at the Wroclaw Medical University we implemented recently purchased, state-of-the-art system called ‘Atlas’ (by Neuralynx Inc.) for clinical and research electrophysiological studies in the human brain. Two entire days in Wroclaw were dedicated to assemble and present the system to a team of experts at the university hospital. The…

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Foundation for Polish Science extended funding for our First Team research project

We are closing the 2020 calendar year with great news about obtaining additional funding to support the main research project in our Brain and Mind Electrophysiology lab entitled: ‘Neurophysiological mapping and stimulation of the human brain for memory enhancement’. The decision was based on reviewing the progress and plans for continuing research in this project. One of the main discoveries made so far is a new area in the left frontal lobe of our cortex,…

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How to decipher the code of the human mind? A new Interview with Dr. Kucewicz

Gdansk University of Technology (PG), where our BME lab is based, has received a prestigious recognition from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education for the second best research university in the country (the top technical university). This recognition comes with new developments and investments not only in the research itself but also in public awareness and international promotion. A new interview with Dr. Kucewicz from our lab was published this month on the university website, pioneering…

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Dr. Kucewicz and our research highlighted in a book about Gdansk

The story of our BME lab is one of the highlights of a new book entitled: ‘Gdansk wczoraj i dzis 1990-2020. 30 lat samorzadnosci’ (‘Gdansk yesterday and today 1990-2020. 30 years of the local government’), which was published on the anniversary of the first democratic local government elections. The book summarizes key achievements in the last thirty years of the city. Our story is in the education section (see the photo), relating back to the Fahrenheit scholarships for…

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‘Naukowe Love’, i.e. sharing our passion for neuroscience across all generations

This month Dr. Kucewicz engaged in several public events dedicated to promoting neuroscience and awareness of the societal problems that our research addresses. ‘Centrum Naukowe Eksperyment’ in Gdynia invited us to present and run a workshop on their special Valentine’s Day event ‘Naukowe Love’ about the heart and the brain (btw, St. Valentine is the patron for epilepsy). Our workshop was attended by most of the participants (over 700 in total!) with almost continuous 4…