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Discover the activity of your nervous system

As you read this text your brain is generating signals and patterns. It is translating everything your senses see, hear, feel, and smell, storing the information in your memory, and generating emotional responses.

Moving your thumb to scroll past this on your phone will generate different signals, as will adjusting your position in your chair or on your feet. Everything you do, feel, and experience makes billions of neurons in your brain fire off thousands of signals every second.

Our exhibit will showcase our work on expanding our understanding these neural signals and patterns and translating them into information that can be understood by artificial devices. What does this mean? Ever wanted to control a robot with your mind? That’s what it means.

If you can, learn about the basics and conduct experiments before visiting our virtual neural pattern lab. Then we can have an informed discussion among colleagues.

We look forward to seeing you back here soon to find out more about our Royal Society Summer Science Exhibit. You can also find out more about our research in the Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Research Group in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.

The header image used for this page is copyrighted to Nissan.

Activities
at the exhibit

Learn about brain anatomy
Control a robot with the signals your brain sends to your muscles
Spell your name with a Brain-Computer Interface
Run experiments in the virtual laboratory
A hold holding up a cream-coloured plastic model of a brain, with some sections coloured in blue, red, purple and yellow.
An orange and white "Pepper" robot, facing slightly to the left.
The back of the head of someone wearing a black and red EEG cap. Out of focus in the background is a robotic arm holding a pen over a piece of paper.
Two charts, one above the other, showing neural signals in blue. The top has the heading "Trial 1" in white text, and the bottom has "Average" in white text.

A few neuroscientific basics

Learn more about the brain and the underlying activity of neurons and the neural system.

Neurotechnology principles

Read about neurotechnology and how non-invasive research uncovers our brain activity.

The Virtual Laboratory

Run a few experiments and explore different neural patterns.
The exhibit
Ethics and research integrity
Our team
Professor Reinhold Scherer in a blue coat, with steps in the background.
"We're developing Neural Interfaces for communication and control, for neurorehabilitation and for human augmentation. These will help people with disabilities and neurological conditions communicate, move, and improve and enhance cognitive skills."
Professor Reinhold Scherer Team lead Mind Over Matter
A large pink banner with pictograms of viruses, animals and planets in white, with "Summer Science 6 - 10 July 2022" in white text on the left. Above is a small blue rectangle with "Part of the Royal Society's Free Event" in white text.
Research Group: Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering
We specialise in non-invasive research to develop brain-computer interfaces. Our research looks at a broad range of BCI applications.
Computer science and engineering research at Essex
Our world-renowned research is grouped into two themes: artificial intelligence and communications systems.
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