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Hirokazu Takahashi
The winner of the best oral presentation at EMBEC'02 (YIC).
Topic: Functional Electrostimulation.
Hirokazu Takahashi was born in Sendai, Japan, in 1975. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D degrees in mechanical
engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1998, 2000 and 2003, respectively. He is now with Department
of Engineering Synthesis, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. His research interests are
in areas of biomedical engineering ranging from rehabilitation engineering for restoring lost functions, to experimental
neurophysiology for understanding fundamental brain functions. His laboratory, (Nakao Laboratory) headed by Professor
Masayuki Nakao, focuses on the design of required products and how to realise required functions specifically in
interdisciplinary fields, on the basis of micro-machining technologies. It is the feeling of this laboratory, that progress
in biology, medicine, neuroscience and other fields could and should owe much more to advanced technologies.
The work Hirokazu presented in EMBEC'02 proposes and verifies "the multiple gating stimulation", which can selectively
activate nerves placed between electrodes, through simulations with nerve equations and in vivo experiments of rat spinal
cord stimulation. The technique broadly generates action potentials with "the cathodic source electrodes," and
simultaneously blocks unnecessary propagation downstream with "the anodic gate electrodes," resulting in selective
propagation between electrodes. The multiple gating stimulation substantially overcomes a constraint of conventional
stimulation, which can activate only nerves just beneath electrodes. A key component for success is the use of
additional anodic stimuli, causing hyperpolarization and thus usually dropping from notice in nerve activation.
Mr. Yuichiro Okano, a Master's student in the Nakao Laboratory, made significant contribution to the mathematical simulation.
Close collaborations with both Professor Kimitaka Kaga, (Department of Otorhinolaryngology), and the Head and Neck Surgery,
Faculty of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, also promoted the work.
Hirokazu Takahashi
NAKAO Lab., Department of Engineering Synthesis
Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo
hiro@hnl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
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