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Miguel Nicolelis Discusses Brain-Machine Connections in Live, Interactive Webcast March 18

Viewers are invited to submit questions for the “Office Hours” interview with Nicolelis

Miguel Nicolelis

Working with colleagues in 2008, Professor Miguel Nicolelis successfully harnessed the brain activity of a monkey and sent the signals over the Internet to Japan, where they triggered a robot to walk on a treadmill in real time.

Nicolelis will answer questions about this research and the future of brain-machines connections in a live webcast on Duke University's Ustream channel beginning at noon Friday, March 18. Anyone can submit a question for Nicolelis with an email to live@duke.edu before the webcast. During the show, online viewers can Tweet with the tag #dukelive or post their questions to the Duke University Facebook page.

In his new book Beyond Boundaries (available this spring), Nicolelis says his research will not only have significant implications for severely paralyzed patients, but also could revolutionize social networking.

Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and even the Internet will be ancient history because individuals will communicate brain to brain in a "brain net," he said.

Nicolelis is the Anne W. Deane Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of Duke Center for Neuroengineering. He is a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he received his M.D. and Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the University of Sao Paulo.

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Office hours at a university are times when professors leave their doors open for individuals to stop by and discuss issues such as current events and developments in their fields. Duke's "Office Hours" series aims to bring the expansiveness and sparkle of these conversations to anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in the ideas bubbling up at Duke. This semester, topics have ranged from national security reporting to the preaching of Martin Luther King Jr., and marine life in Antarctica to the uprising in Egypt.