The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded BME/ECE’s Byron Yu and Professor Matthew Smith from the University of Pittsburgh nearly $500,000 to conduct a research project, titled “Volitional Modulation of neural activity in the visual cortex.” For their project, Yu and Smith will use a brain-computer interface (BCI) to identify which aspects of the brain’s activity are sensory versus cognitive. Then, they will analyze how these different aspects combine in the brain to produce perception of the world. The NSF granted 19 awards to teams from all over the United States to conduct research on neural and cognitive systems. The awards will contribute to the NSF’s support of the BRAIN initiative, a research effort created to spark the development of new neurotechnologies.