The NSG Biomedical Engineering Lab (Director: Dr. Quan Zhang) is one of two labs under the umbrella of the Neural Systems Group (NSG), located at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Sponsored by NIH, NASA, and other resources, the focus of the lab is to develop novel wearable monitoring and imaging technologies for the prevention, diagnosis, and management of cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks and strokes) and psychiatric disorders (e.g. depression), as well as working to reduce health risks for astronauts during space flights, including those on the International Space Station and in long-term space flight to Mars.
NSB BME lab provides facilities for (i) biomedical instrumentation development, testing, characterization, and repair, including continuous wave and radio frequency NIRS systems; (ii) electro-optical design, fabrication and testing, including surface-mount modification capabilities, breadboard mounts, and mechanical mounts for custom opto-mechanical design, characterization and testing; and (iii) a mechanical engineering shop. Available hardware include 3D printers, oscilloscopes, optical power meters, visible-infrared JAZ spectrometer, infrared thermal imager, optical microscope, laser profiler, 1GHz function generator, multiple data acquisition devices, a precision voltage reference, precision scale, motors, various electro-optical components such as diode lasers, photodetectors, beam splitters, optical fibers, fiber bundles, ND filters, connectors, and various device and optical probe development tools (e.g., multimeters, soldering station, punches, drill press, shop tools, Dremmel tool).
The Neural Systems Group (Director: Dr. Gary Strangman) is an interdisciplinary group focusing on psychiatric and cognitive neuroimaging and novel technology development. BME Lab’s sister lab in NSG is the Human Lab. This lab provides a quiet and controlled environment for (i) performance testing, (ii) clinical evaluation, (iii) behavioral task testing and (iv) physiological monitoring of both healthy and patient populations (past projects have included healthy subjects as well as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and depression patients). The lab is equipped with standard clinical exam instrumentation (including automated blood pressure cuffs), an eye tracker, commercial pulse-oximeters (Nonin, Inc.), custom-developed oximetry systems, respirometer (AD Instruments, Inc.), as well as a range of hardware and cabling for synchronized coupling of the various instruments. In addition, numerous wireless sensors (both Bluetooth and radio) are available for testing purposes, including ECG, EMG, EOG, galvanic skin response, tri-axial accelerometers, gyroscopes, and temperature and CO2 sensors. One late-model laptop computer is available for delivery of experimental stimuli.