- PhD, 2014
- BA, 2008
Education & Training
The Chen lab develops high-channel-count, chronically implantable devices to record from and stimulate the brain.
We harness cutting-edge developments in electrode fabrication and microelectronics to improve probe durability and biocompatibility, generating fundamental neuroscientific knowledge and translating results from the lab to the clinic.
Our applications include the restoration of life-enhancing vision in the blind. Blindness affects 40 million people worldwide, with a wide variety of causes, including injury to or degeneration of the retina and optic nerve. Brain implants interface directly with visual regions in the brain, bypassing the retina and optic nerve to produce artificially generated percepts without input from the eye.
We use devices with >1000 channels to interface with large areas of the visual cortex, delivering tiny electrical currents to elicit the perception of dots of light (known as ‘phosphenes’). We deliver stimulation across multiple electrodes simultaneously, inducing percepts composed of multiple phosphenes, and causing our subjects to see movement, and simple shapes such as letters.
Klink PC, Chen X, Vanduffel W & Roelfsema PR. Population receptive fields in non-human primates from whole-brain fMRI and large-scale neurophysiology in visual cortex. eLife 2021;10:e67304.
Sanayei M*, Chen X*, Chicharro D, Distler C, Panzeri S, Thiele A. Perceptual learning of fine contrast discrimination changes neuronal tuning and population coding in macaque V4. Nature Communications 2018, 9, 4238.
Chen X, Sanayei M, Thiele A. Stimulus roving and flankers affect perceptual learning of contrast discrimination in macaca mulatta. PLoS ONE 2014, 9(10): e109604.
Chen X, Sanayei M, Thiele A. Perceptual learning of contrast discrimination in macaca mulatta. Journal of Vision 2013, 13(13), 22.
Chen X, Hoffmann KP, Albright TD, Thiele A. Effect of feature-selective attention on neuronal responses in macaque area MT. Journal of Neurophysiology 2012, 107(5), 1530-1543.
