What happens to the brain of someone who doesn't hear? How to control the knee with inertial sensors? How does the brain listen? How can virtual reality provide inclusion for People with Disabilities in society? These and other questions are answered in videos and summaries on Neurotalks, a free online space for scientific dissemination launched by the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neurosciences, from the Santos Dumont Institute (IIN-ELS/ISD) at the end of December. The content can be accessed on ISD website and in Instituto Santos Dumont channel on YouTube. 

The objective of the platform is to present ideas and motivations for neuroscientific research. The initiative was launched at the beginning of December with the selection of proposals and works to be presented covering different topics in neuroscience. The approved videos and summaries are written by students and alumni of the master's degree in neuroengineering of the IIN-ELS/ISD and the Multiprofessional Residency in Health Care for Persons with DisabilitiesHowever, the expectation is that the platform will continue to receive work from students and researchers from other institutions as well. 

The authors of the works already published in NeuroTalks carry out research through the Master's Degree in Neuroengineering and the Multiprofessional Residency in Health Care for People with Disabilities, pioneering postgraduate programs in Brazil. Among the themes developed are augmented virtual reality, cognition, computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, assistive technology and quantitative neuroanatomy. 

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15 videos are now available on the ISD website and YouTube channel. Among the titles of the works covered are: virtual reality and Olympic bocce, transcranial stimulation in Parkinson's disease, neuroanatomical techniques, electrophysiology and neurosciences, congenital Zika virus syndrome and the bladder. 

Information about the research was submitted virtually through forms and analyzed by a panel of IIN-ELS professors. Videos of approved proposals can be accessed here. 

For the IIN-ELS manager and research coordinator at the Institute, Edgard Morya, the initiative is innovative and functions as a 'permanent congress'. “NeuroTalks is a scientific dissemination platform similar to a congress, what changes is that we don’t have to wait the whole year to learn about innovative work, it is a kind of virtual and permanent congress where research on different topics within neuroscience will be presented”, explains Morya, who expects to open new selections of proposals for Neurotalks in 2021.

Since 2013, IIN-ELS has offered the first Master's degree in Neuroengineering in Brazil. The postgraduate program is free, lasts 24 months and selection processes take place twice a year. For the next class, registration remains open until January 21st (check the notice). 

Rehabilitation, brain-machine interface, prosthetics and orthoses, neurodegenerative diseases and computational neuroscience are some of the main thematic areas of research carried out at the Institute.