Sliman Bensmaia has been named the James and Karen Frank Family Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and the College.
Bensmaia is a neuroscientist who studies how sensory information is encoded in the nervous system, including the sense of touch and of the position of limbs as they move through space. His lab uses these discoveries to help develop prosthetic limbs that can restore a realistic sense of touch to amputees and paralyzed patients.
Bensmaia’s lab develops algorithms to recreate the sense of touch through brain computer interfaces that convert the output of sensors on bionic hands into patterns of stimulation of the brain that then give rise to artificial touch sensations. Using a biomimetic approach, they aim to mimic the biological processes underlying how the nervous system communicates signals from the hand to the brain to create lifelike sensations of touch and confer to the bionic hands greater dexterity. He is currently applying these algorithms in human patients who can control bionic hands with their mind and receive sensory feedback from them.
