TU Delft's Professor Frans van der Helm and Professor Gert Kwakkel from VU University Medical Center have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council. The researchers intend to use the grant, worth € 3.5 million, to develop a new method for accurately recording brain activity in place and time. It is hoped that it can be used in the future to benefit people recovering from brain haemorrhages, for example.
4D
Last year, the TU Delft Biomechatronics and Biorobotics research group, led by Frans van der Helm, successfully completed a pilot experiment for a new 4D-method to scan brain activity. 4D, or four-dimensional, means that the brain activity is not only monitored in terms of place (3D), but also in time.
Van der Helm: "We intend to use the Advanced Grant to develop this new technology further, in partnership with the VU University Medical Center. Our first objective is to develop a new tool to record brain activity in relation to specific motor activity. We aim to achieve an extremely high level of precision in measuring time and place, for example every millisecond and approximately two millimetres."
EEG
Van der Helm and Kwakkel will achieve this high level of precision using EEG (electroencephalography). Physicians and researchers generally use fMRI scans (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to identify brain activity. fMRI scans record the flow of blood to specific areas of the brain but this does not happen until two to fifteen seconds after the brain activity has taken place.
4D EEG does not measure the flow of blood, but instead directly records the electrical signals in the brain. It is hoped that this new technique will show how the signal moves through the brain. 'We expect the new 4D EEG method to be a breakthrough compared to the old fMRIs', says Van der Helm.
Robots
Van der Helm and Kwakkel's project focuses on the relationship between motor activity and brain activity. They use robots that continuously exert different forces on specific joints in the patient as the brain is being scanned. Via the sensors in the muscles and the spinal cord, these stimuli trigger brain signals which move through the brain along specific pathways. These signals then result in movement of the muscles and changes in the reflex strength, which are monitored using 4D EEG.
Brain haemorrhage
The second objective of the project is to use the method on people who have suffered a brain haemorrhage. The researchers aim to study what the recovery of motor skills, such as learning to reach out and grip with a paralysed arm, looks like in the brain. Gert Kwakkel: "This research fits in well with ongoing research into the recovery of arm-hand skills following a stroke. It is only possible to understand the functional meaning of changes in brain activity areas if you can measure internally and externally simultaneously, in other words, using the brain scanner and the robots. The knowledge we gain from all this research will be used to improve the therapy provided to patients undergoing rehabilitation."
Health
Dean Marco Waas from the TU Delft 3ME faculty (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) is delighted with the awarding of the grant. Waas: "The grant provides an excellent boost to the research in our faculty. The theme of health is an essential part of the faculty and University strategy. We hope that the grant will encourage investments in this important area."
More information
Prof. Frans van der Helm, TU Delft, F.C.T.vanderHelm@tudelft.nl ; tel: 31 (0)15 27 85616
Prof. Dr Gert Kwakkel, VU University Medical Center, g.kwakkel@vumc.nl
Ms N. (Nienke) van Bemmel, science information officer, Delft Health Initiative, N.vanBemmel@tudelft.nl ; tel: +31 (0)15 27 84259 (available 16-12 only)
Mr Jan G. Spee, Department of Communication Services, VU University Medical Center, tel: +31 (0)20 44 43444