TinyBrains researchers Prof. Fabrice Wallois and PhD student Ali Rajabi Mashhadi, from the University of Picardie-Jules Verne, travelled to Barcelona last May to test the system that studies the neuronal and vascular network responses. This system is based on EEG and fNIRS and has been developed in collaboration with Seenel Imaging. It will serve to acquire the response to stimuli, known as the evoked potential, of the neuronal and hemodynamic networks of the animals in ongoing preclinical studies.

On their first day, accompanied by postdoc researchers at ICFO Melih Can and Nishigandha Patil and neonatologist Marta Camprubí, from the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, they visited the facilities of the Comparative Medicine and Bioimage Centre (CMCiB), where the animal studies are being conducted. There, the UPJV researchers tested their system, which will serve to characterize and analyse how the brain responds to external auditory stimuli, before and after surgery. They also showed how to place the electrodes and correctly set up the system to obtain the data. On the next day, they also visited the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital. There, Dr. Patil showed the latest advancements that the ICFO team has made in the TinyBrains probe configuration, and they tested it in the simulation room.

The visit is framed in the context of work package 6. In the next step of the project, researchers will also use this system to study the responses in the brains of those babies undergoing surgery for congenital heart diseases.