HOME People Researchers Takufumi Yanagisawa

Takufumi Yanagisawa

Main Lab Location：
Osaka Univ. (Suita Campus)
Specific Research Topic：
Brain machine interface, Pain
Other Affiliations：
Professor Osaka University Institute for Advanced Co-Creation Studies
Mailing Address：
2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan

Brain machine interfaces (BMI) are a technology to infer human thoughts by decoding brain signals. It can be applied to severely paralyzed patients to reconstruct their motor function and communication ability. For completely paralyzed patients such as severe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), BMI may be the only method to express their thoughts. I have developed a BMI method using electrodes implanted inside the human brain (ECoG-BMI).

So far, we have applied ECoG-BMI in paralyzed patients due to stroke and severe ALS to show that they could successfully control a prosthetic hand through their brain signals. In a severe case, we have allowed one patient with ALS to successfully control a PC to type words using the BMI, although he had almost no ability to move his body all. Moreover, I’m now developing a new treatment method for phantom limb pain, which is one of the most intractable forms of pain.

We expect BMI may be a novel method to reveal the underlying mechanisms of phantom limb pain, and may give rise to new ways to relieve the pain.

Selected Publications：

Fukuma R, Yanagisawa T*, Saitoh Y, Hosomi K, Kishima H, Shimizu T, Sugata H, Yokoi H, Hirata M, Kamitani Y, Yoshimine T, Real-Time Control of a Neuroprosthetic Hand by Magnetoencephalographic Signals from Paralysed Patients, Scientific Reports, 2016 Feb 24;6:21781.
*Corresponding to this work
Yanagisawa T, Yamashita O, Hirata M, Kishima H, Saitoh Y, Goto T, Yoshimine T, Kamitani Y., Regulation of motor representation by phase-amplitude coupling in the sensorimotor cortex., J Neurosci. 2012 Oct 31; 32(44): 15467-75.

Yanagisawa T, Hirata M, Saitoh Y, Kishima H, Matsushita K, Goto T, Fukuma R, Yokoi H, Kamitani Y, Yoshimine T, Electrocorticographic control of a prosthetic arm in paralyzed patients, Annals of Neurology, 2012, Mar:71 (3):353-61

Yanagisawa T, Hirata M, Saitoh Y, Goto T, Kishima H, Fukuma R, Yokoi H, Kamitani Y, Yoshimine T., Real-time control of a prosthetic hand using human electrocorticography signals., J Neurosurg. 2011, 114(6):1715-22

Yanagisawa T, Hirata M, Saitoh Y, Kato A, Shibuya D, Kamitani Y, Yoshimine T., Neural decoding using gyral and intrasulcal electrocorticograms., Neuroimage., 45(4):1099-106, 2009