Handbook of Neural Engineering

Dr. Stephanie Willerth is a Full Professor in Biomedical Engineering and holds a Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria, where she has dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Medical Sciences. She also holds an appointment with the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2021 and received the 2021 Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia’s Teaching Award for Excellence. She recently founded the start-up company Axolotl Biosciences, which sells high-quality bioinks for bioprinting human tissue models. Dr. Willerth is an active member of the steering committee of the B.C. Regenerative Medicine Initiative and the Stem Cell Network. She also serves as a staff scientist at Creative Destruction Lab. Dr. Willerth served as the Acting Director of the Centre for Biomedical Research and the Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program at the University of Victoria from 2018-2021 and as the President of Canadian Biomaterials Society from 2018-2019. Dr. Willerth is the author of Engineering Neural Tissue from Stem Cells, published by Elsevier Academic Press in 2016.

1. Introduction to Neural Engineering Section 1: Biological Considerations for Neural Engineering 2. Overview of the structure and function of the nervous system 3. Cellular Biology of the Nervous System 4. Extracellular Matrix of the Nervous System 5. Immune System and its role in the Nervous System 6. Disease States of the Nervous System 7. The Effect of Trauma on the Nervous System 8. The role of chronic pain in the nervous system Section 2: Neural Engineering Strategies 9. Strategies for Imaging the Nervous System Will take a quantitative approach including relevant equations and example code 10. Strategies for Examining Nervous System Function 11. Neural Interfaces 12. Brain-Computer Interfaces 13. Neural Prostheses 14. Neurorobotics 15. Neural Tissue Engineering Section 3: Emerging Technologies for Neural Engineering 16. Optogenetics for Neural Engineering Applications 17. Gene Editing for Neural Engineering Applications 18. 3D printing for Neural Engineering Applications 19. Brain Organoids 20. Modeling the Nervous System using Organ-On-A-Chip System