In the laboratory of Professor Charles Higgins, we study brains (often those of insects) as a way of building better robots, create novel brain-machine interfaces, and build novel devices to improve human health.

We have done computational studies of insect vision systems to determine exactly how visual motion detection works. We have studied bees and made a model of how they fly through a tunnel. We are building robots that incorporate living insects as part of their sensory system. We are exploring how cognition works by creating a simulated rat wandering around in a maze. And recently, we've begun to study human sleep and neurofeedback in a effort to build devices to improve human health.

The Higgins laboratory would like to gratefully acknowledge support for this research from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Air Force Research Laboratories.