Mitra Hartmann

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Mitra J.Z. Hartmann is a professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. She specializes in robotics, sensory acquisition behaviors, sensorimotor integration, and neuroethology. Her lab focuses on translating sensory signals felt by whiskers to robotics. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Career

Hartmann earned a B.S. in applied and engineering physics at Cornell University and a PhD in integrative neuroscience from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She was a computational neurobiology postdoc at Caltech and a bio-computing postdoc at the Jet Propulsion Lab. She joined the faculty at Northwestern in 2003 and won the McCormick School of Engineering Teacher of the Year Award in 2009, 2010, and 2011. [7]

She became an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow in 2017 and is an editorial board member for the Journal of Neurophysiology, a programming committee member for the Barrels Society, and a National Institutes of Health SMI study section member. [8] [9]

Research

Hartmann currently focuses on animal whiskers and how information about touch is sent from the whisker to the brain. This is multi-disciplinary research and her lab is made up of neuroscientists, mechanical engineers, biomedical engineers, and civil engineers, among others. In April 2021, she published a paper in PLOS Computational Biology about how whiskers bend in an S shape when whisking and signals are transmitted from the base of the follicle, activated when the whisker is pushed against it, to the brain. This research may eventually be able to be applied to helping people with brain injuries or who have suffered from strokes regain the ability to walk. [10]

She currently holds four patents: [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whiskers</span> Type of animal hair used for sensing

Whiskers or vibrissae are a type of stiff, functional hair used by most mammals to sense their environment. These hairs are finely specialised for this purpose, whereas other types of hair are coarser as tactile sensors. Although whiskers are specifically those found around the face, vibrissae are known to grow in clusters at various places around the body. Most mammals have them, including all non-human primates and especially nocturnal mammals.

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The barrel cortex is a region of the somatosensory cortex that is identifiable in some species of rodents and species of at least two other orders and contains the barrel field. The 'barrels' of the barrel field are regions within cortical layer IV that are visibly darker when stained to reveal the presence of cytochrome c oxidase and are separated from each other by lighter areas called septa. These dark-staining regions are a major target for somatosensory inputs from the thalamus, and each barrel corresponds to a region of the body. Due to this distinctive cellular structure, organisation, and functional significance, the barrel cortex is a useful tool to understand cortical processing and has played an important role in neuroscience. The majority of what is known about corticothalamic processing comes from studying the barrel cortex, and researchers have intensively studied the barrel cortex as a model of neocortical column.

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References

  1. ↑ Simon, Matt. "Want a Robot That Can Really Feel? Give It Whiskers", Wired , 14 July 2017. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  2. ↑ Northwestern University Master of Science in Robotics. "Five Minutes With Professor Mitra Hartmann", Northwestern University, 9 October 2018. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  3. ↑ Krisch, Joshua A. "E-Whiskers Have Arrived to Fulfill All Your Robot Cat Dreams", Popular Mechanics , 20 January 2014. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  4. ↑ Morris, Amanda. "Rat Whiskers Shed Light on How Neurons Communicate Touch", Northwestern University, 2 August 2016. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  5. ↑ Nield, David. "A Genius New Simulation Has Revealed More on How Whiskers Actually Work", ScienceAlert , 10 April 2021. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  6. ↑ PLOS. "First-of-its-kind mechanical model simulates bending of mammalian whiskers", ScienceDaily , n.d. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  7. ↑ VideoLectures.net. "Mitra Hartmann", Videolectures.net, n.d. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  8. ↑ Morris, Amanda. "Five Faculty Members Elected to Medical and Biological Engineering Elite ", Northwestern University, 16 February 2017. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  9. ↑ American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). "Mitra J. Hartmann, Ph.D. To be Inducted into Medical and Biological Engineering Elite", AIMBE, 7 March 2017. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  10. ↑ "Sensory and Neural Systems Engineering", Northwestern University, 2012. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
  11. ↑ Northwestern University. "Mitra Hartmann", Northwestern University, n.d.. Retrieved on 13 June 2021.
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