The overall objective of the HybridNeuro CSA was to create the foundation and support for long-term, well-structured, and integrated research and innovation partnership in the field of hybrid neural-machine interfaces between Slovenia, a widening and developing European country, and Sweden, the United Kingdom (UK), and Spain, well-established European countries with high research impact. The project addressed hybrid neural-machine interfaces that record cerebral and muscular signals, aiming to improve the objectivity, precision, and personalisation of monitoring and rehabilitation for neuromuscular disorders, such as stroke, and to support the development of novel movement augmentation techniques in the healthy population.
The consortium comprised the University of Maribor (UM), Chalmers University of Technology (CHALMERS), Imperial College London (IMPERIAL), and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). All four partners are experts in biomedical signal processing. In the HybridNeuro project, UM’s expertise in muscle-machine interfaces (a bottom-up approach to neuromuscular investigations) has been complemented by the excellence of IMPERIAL, CHALMERS, and UPC in the emerging research areas of brain-machine interfaces (a top-down approach to neuromuscular investigations) and neurophysiology. Institut Guttmann for Spain participated as a subcontractor of UM, providing the clinical recordings of stroke patients.
HybridNeuro aimed to foster the development of research excellence at UM and in the Eastern Slovenian Region through a) career forming of early-stage and senior researchers, b) increasing the attractiveness of UM for visiting researchers, c) improving project proposal and management capacity, and d) forming new and strengthening old collaborations between industrial, clinical, and research institutions in Slovenia and abroad.
