Yael Hanein Discusses Working With Electrophysiological Tools

Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions

Yael Haneun is a professor of Electrical Engineering at Tel Aviv University. Her research field is neuro-engineering, focusing on developing wearable electronic and bionic vision. She is also the VP of Nano Retina and has previously worked as a research associate at the University of Washington. In today’s episode, Yael talks about her work in neuro-engineering and some breakthroughs with electrophysiological tools.

Top three takeaways:

1. With soft dry electrodes, you have a system that is truly wireless.
2. Wet electrodes are better for short durations and dry electrodes are better for long durations.
3. At the moment, Yael’s company is focusing on 3 directions, sleeping monitoring, sports application and developing a kit for other researchers to apply the technology.

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Yael Hanein

[1:55] Yael introduces her work in neuro-engineering; giving a timelapse from her work in electrophysiology to her recent work using electrophysiological tools for skin applications.

[2:45] EEGs are basically electrodes on the skin, Yael explains the mechanics of using EEGs.

[6:00] ‘Wet electrodes are for short durations and dry electrodes are for long durations.’ Yale breaks down the explains the functional lifetime of the two different electrode setup and when to use either.

[6:45] The information we get from these electrodes is electrophysiological. The first thing we use the electrodes to get was facial mapping and facial expressions.

[12:25] Yael discusses what academic life is like in Israel. She talks about some of the similarities and differences with American academic life.

[15:20] Yael talks about starting a company, the motivation behind it and the difficulties of going commercial.

[21:15] What are some of the challenges with the research and making it more mainstream?

[26:45] Thomas discusses his role at Cortec-neuro