Engineering foundational neuroscience discoveries to improve lives

Neural Engineering

Neural Engineering Cross-Translation Institute Program (UP NExT)

Paralysis, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, blindness, and chronic pain affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While the scientific expertise to address these challenges exists, progress has been limited by fragmentation across disciplines. Organized by the Department of Bioengineering, UP NExT is Pitt’s response to that gap, bringing together researchers across engineering, medicine, and the sciences to develop technologies that treat disease, restore function, and improve the lives of those affected by neurological injury.

Faculty

$22M+

In Annual Research Funding

Research Areas

1 Goal

Delivering Discoveries to Patients

News Highlights

Three Bioengineering PhD Students receive NIH F31 Fellowships

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A Pittsburgh discovery about learning comes full circle

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Engineering enters the operating room

A new NIH-funded T32 training program will connect bioengineers and neurosurgeons

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Hunter Family Foundation Funds Novel Approach to Optimizing Parkinson’s Therapy

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Picture Perfect

Pitt Bioengineering researchers use advanced imaging techniques to see biology at every scale

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Five Swanson School Students Named NSF Graduate Research Fellows

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Bioengineering Faculty earn SSOE named professorships, fellowships

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Layla Banihashemi receives Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine

News Highlights

On its 75th Anniversary, NINDS Celebrates Pitt’s Spinal Cord Research

Research led by Pitt scientists and physicians helps to restore motor function for patients who’ve suffered strokes, injury or neural degeneration.

News Highlights

The secret that explains the Quad God’s Olympic choke

Professor of Bioengineering Aaron Batista's research was featured in the NY Post Opinion Piece.

What is Neural Engineering?

Neural engineering applies advanced technologies and computational approaches to understand, repair, and enhance the nervous system. We’re currently working on:

Restoring Movement

We’re developing brain-computer interfaces that allow people with paralysis to control robotic arms, computers, and their own muscles using thought alone.

Rebuilding the Sense of Touch

Neural stimulation technologies are giving prosthetic limb users the ability to feel pressure, texture, and temperature.

Relearning to Walk

Spinal cord stimulation is restoring walking and grasping in people with spinal cord injuries, opening new possibilities for rehabilitation medicine.

Restoring Vision

Cutting-edge visual prosthetics are translating light into neural signals, with the goal of returning functional sight to people with blindness.

Understanding and Treating Brain Disease

From Alzheimer's diagnosis to stroke recovery to epilepsy surgery, we’re developing new tools to detect, treat, and prevent neurological disease.

Building Smarter Neural Technologies

Advances in materials science, biocompatibility, and neural interfaces are making the next generation of implantable devices safer, longer-lasting, and more precise.

Faculty

Neural Engineering researchers are advancing the ways we think about the brain

"i'd like people to see the world not as engineering versus science, but in a blended way. We need to think about the complex landscape that is the brain, or we’re not even looking at half the puzzle.” - Takashi (T.K) Kozai

Meet Our Faculty

Students

Interested in Studying Neural Engineering?

The Department of Bioengineering offers two graduate programs: A professional MS in Bioengineering with a Neural Engineering focus, and PhD in Bioengineering on the Neural Engineering track.

Downtown Pittsburgh and the Three Sisters bridges

Why Pittsburgh?

Most neural engineering programs move from animal models to human trials. At Pitt, discovery moves both ways, with clinical insights at UPMC shaping research and accelerating innovation in a reciprocal relationship. This is strengthened by Pittsburgh’s unique ecosystem, where the University of Pittsburgh, Pitt’s School of Medicine, and UPMC, one of the nation’s largest health systems, operate just across the street from each other.