/// BRAINSTORM IL - THE NEUROSCIENCE ECOSYSTEM AT REICHMAN UNIVERSITY

MSc student Gil Geva moves his hands using his brain waves with the recoveriX rehabilitation system for stroke patients

Brainstorm IL, a community for Israeli neurotechnology, was established in 2018 with the purpose of connecting neuroscience students with the neurotech industry and specifically, preparing them for what happens after graduation. With activities on campuses all over Israel, Brainstorm RU at Reichman University operates under the auspices of the Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology. With the School of Psychology’s Dean, Prof. Anat BrunsteinKlomek and world-renowned neuroscientists Prof. Ruth Feldman and Prof. Amir Amedi, Brainstorm RU has been providing members with various activities, lectures, and networking opportunities since 2019.

One of the activities that Brainstorm RU organized for its members on campus was an HCI (Human Computer Interface) workshop, where they brought software and code, and a simple EEG machine to which they connected a few participants. The participants saw their brainwaves, with the screen showing two colors to represent the level of stress and relaxation they were feeling at the time. In this workshop, Brainstorm RU team showed the participants how humans can learn to control their brainwaves with basic neurofeedback.

For another activity, they invited a representative of NBT, the company that imported recoveriX, which is a technology that supports the rehabilitation process of patients recovering from strokes who have some motor paralysis. This system trains parts of the brain affected by a stroke to work again, by sending electrical stimulations that create involuntary responses. The purpose is for the training to eventually turn involuntary responses into voluntary ones, and for the body to regain full function.

According to Dr. Adi Ulmer-Yaniv, a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Developmental Social Neuroscience at Reichman University and cofounder of Brainstorm RU (with doctoral student Maya Mentzel and MSc students Ofek Salama and Adi Gotliber), “Brainstorm RU opens a lot of possibilities for professional development and connections between the industry and academy in neurosciences. The fact that neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that combines several research fields such as medicine, biology, psychology, and computer science, epitomizes the spirit of Reichman University.”