Neuroscience and neurotechnology

Our research aims at cutting-edge research on the human nervous system with pioneering technology that enables advanced measurement, analysis, modeling, and modulation of the system. Aalto has a strong, decades-long history of collaboration among neuroscientists, physicists, computer scientists, engineers, and medical professionals. Our technologies and innovations in instrumentation as well as our methods are motivated by the needs of scientists and clinicians and open up, in turn, unexpected new possibilities for research.

Key technologies in measurement, analysis, and interventions under development at Aalto are magnetoencephalography (MEG), navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS); transcranial electrical stimulation (TES), and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). All these are in clinical use or undergoing clinical testing.

The aforementioned technologies are available for users at Aalto NeuroImaging (ANI) in Otaniemi and at the BioMag Laboratory in the Helsinki University Central Hospital, the latter being operated jointly by Aalto, the University of Helsinki, and the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS). Together, ANI and BioMag form the NEUROIMAGING research infrastructure, part of the Finnish national roadmap of research infrastructures.

Emergence of noninvasive neuroimaging techniques has made it possible to track neural processing in healthy human brains and uncover the neural mechanisms of the human mind and behavior. A variety of imaging methods provides rich and complementary information to these mechanisms.

Professors active in the area:

• Risto Ilmoniemi (Chair), Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Petri Ala-Laurila, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Synnöve Carlson, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Iiro Jääskeläinen, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Ari Koskelainen, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Matias Palva, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Lauri Parkkonen, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Riitta Salmelin, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering
• Mikko Sams, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering

Please contact the professors directly, or, as a general contact, please approach either Risto Ilmoniemi (Head of the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering) or Markus Mäkelä.