IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 13, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2013
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Guest Editorial Special Issue on Sensors and Sensing Systems for Neurophysiology
H
UMAN’S ageing is a matter of research among the scientific community working on neurophysiology and it is studied from neonates up to old persons. So neurophysiology is an essential topic impacting on a human being’s capability beyond ageing. Advances in sensing technologies have been allowing the development of diverse applications that have been never carried out. In this context, low physiological quantities related to neurological features are one of the aforementioned applications. All neurological features are generally connected to brain. Invasive and non-invasive monitoring of neurophysiological parameters are essential for global health. Moreover, as recalled before, thanks to the advances in micro and nanotechnologies, it is nowadays possible to monitor all the nervous system. Non-invasive and implantable sensors and sensing systems are basically devices and apparatuses that can help clinicians to make decision about the status of a patient under medical examination. Neurophysiology includes the following topics: muscles, ears and audiometry, eye (ERG, EOG, visual field) and brain issues; brain is the most important organ which is studied in neurophysiology. It has suggested many research activities also exploiting the development of brain imaging techniques (X-ray, CT, MRI, SPECT, PET, Biomagnetism, DTI, etc..). Different techniques based on BCI, EEG, evoked potentials, cell potentials have been recently proposed for neuro-rehabilitation as well as cars and vehicles control by means of neuro-cerebral monitoring. Micro and nanosensors are giving a huge contribution to the above issues. The international community also devoted a relevantly growing interest to bio-implantable sensors and actuators. A sensor that acts as actuator is interesting for example to control intractable epileptic crisis or to alleviate stroke consequences by generating appropriate electromagnetic signals. Advances in materials have produced significant bio-materials for sensors like chitosan, PDMS (poly-dimethyl-siloxane), parylene (polypara-xylylene) and in general other polymers. The special issue has collected interesting papers covering topics dedicated to neurophysiology sensing, hardware constructions and special materials related to the topic. We have received papers from different scientific groups regarding direct aspects of brain, signal processing, indirect parameter characterization and hardware conception. All accepted papers represent a stimulus for all of us since they bring us interesting novelties for encouraging the audience to continue research
in the right directions. However, papers that have not been accepted have also merit for having helped Guest Editors and reviewers to extract useful information. Most of them, even if rejected, have a different approach not suitable for this journal but surely for other reputed publications. So we take advantage for this editorial to thank them. Finally, we would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief and the IEEE S ENSORS J OURNAL staff for their support to produce this special issue and to handle the manuscript review processes.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2013.2274112 1530-437X © 2013 IEEE
A IMÉ L AY-E KUAKILLE, Guest Editor Department of Innovation Engineering University of Salento Lecce 73100, Italy
[email protected]
F RANCESCO C ARLO M ORABITO, Guest Editor MecMat Department University “Mediterranea” of Reggio Calabria Reggio Calabria 89100, Italy
[email protected]
H AROLD H. S ZU, Guest Editor George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 USA
S OO -YOUNG L EE, Guest Editor Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Korea Advanced Institute of Science Technology 305-701 Daejeon, South Korea
