Jose M. Carmena

Associate Professor

Research Areas

• Brain-machine interfaces; Neuroprosthetics; Sensorimotor learning and control; Neural ensemble computation
• Control, Intelligent Systems, and Robotics (CIR)
• Biosystems & Computational Biology (BIO)

Biography

Jose M. Carmena is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Neuroscience at the University of California-Berkeley, and Co-Director of the Center for Neural Engineering and Prostheses at UC Berkeley and UCSF. His research program in neural engineering and systems neuroscience is aimed at understanding the neural basis of sensorimotor learning and control, and at building the science and engineering base that will allow the creation of reliable neuroprosthetic systems for the severely disabled. Dr. Carmena received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) in 1995 and the University of Valencia (Spain) in 1997. Following those he received the M.S. degree in artificial intelligence and the Ph.D. degree in robotics both from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK) in 1998 and 2002 respectively. From 2002 to 2005 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Neurobiology and the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University (Durham, NC). He is senior member of the IEEE (RA, SMC and EMB societies), Society for Neuroscience, and the Neural Control of Movement Society. Dr. Carmena has been the recipient of the Bakar Fellowship (2012), the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Early Career Achievement Award (2011), the Aspen Brain Forum Prize in Neurotechnology (2010), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2010), the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2009), the Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award (2007), the UC Berkeley Hellman Faculty Award (2007), and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2003).

Selected Publications

• A. Koralek, X. Jin, J. Long, R. Costa, and J. M. Carmena, "Corticostriatal plasticity is necessary for learning intentional neuroprosthetic skills," Nature, vol. 483, no. 7389, pp. 331-335, March 2012.
• K. So, A. Koralek, K. Ganguly, M. Gastpar, and J. M. Carmena, "Assessing functional connectivity of neural ensembles using directed information," Journal of Neural Engineering, vol. 9, no. 2, Jan. 2012.
• S. Venkatraman and J. M. Carmena, "Active sensing of target location encoded by cortical microstimulation.," IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 317-324, June 2011.
• K. Ganguly, D. F. Dimitrov, J. D. Wallis, and J. M. Carmena, "Reversible large-scale modification of cortical networks during neuroprosthetic control," Nature Neuroscience, vol. 14, pp. 662-667, March 2011.
• R. Heliot, K. Ganguly, J. Jimenez, and J. M. Carmena, "Learning in closed-loop brain-machine interfaces: modeling and experimental validation," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, part B: Cybernetics, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 1387-1397, Oct. 2010.
• R. Canolty, K. Ganguly, S. Kennerley, C. Cadieu, K. Koepsell, J. Wallis, and J. M. Carmena, "Oscillatory phase coupling coordinates anatomically-dispersed functional cell assemblies," PNAS, Sep. 2010.
• S. Venkatraman, X. Jin, R. Costa, and J. M. Carmena, "Using inertial sensors to investigate neural correlates of behavior in freely behaving rodents," Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 104, pp. 569-575, April 2010.
• K. Ganguly, L. Secundo, G. Ranade, A. Orsborn, E. Chang, D. Dimitrov, J. Wallis, N. Barbaro, R. Knight, and J. M. Carmena, "Cortical representation of ipsilateral arm movements in monkey and man," Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 29, pp. 12948-12956, Nov. 2009.
• K. Ganguly and J. M. Carmena, "Emergence of a stable cortical map for neuroprosthetic control," PLoS Biology, July 2009.
• S. Venkatraman, K. Elkabany, J. D. Long, Y. Yao, and J. M. Carmena, "A system for neural recording and closed-loop intracortical microstimulation in awake rodents," IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Jan. 2009.
• J. M. Carmena, M. A. Lebedev, C. S. Henriquez, and M. A. L. Nicolelis, "Stable ensemble performance with single-neuron variability during reaching movements in primates," Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 25, no. 46, pp. 10712-10716, Nov. 2005.
• J. M. Carmena, M. A. Lebedev, R. E. Crist, J. E. O'Doherty, D. M. Santucci, D. F. Dimitrov, P. G. Patil, and C. S. Henriquez, "Learning to control a brain-machine interface for reaching and grasping by primates," PLoS Biology, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 193-208, Nov. 2003.
• M. A. L. Nicolelis, D. F. Dimitrov, J. M. Carmena, R. Crist, G. Lehew, J. Kralik, and S. P. Wise, "Chronic, multisite, multielectrode recordings in macaque monkeys," PNAS, vol. 100, no. 19, pp. 11041-11046, Sep. 2003.