Preface These are lucky times for a curious scientist. Contemporary research is marked by fastpaced innovations in biotechnology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI). Like ripples in a pond, each of these developments instigate further scientific results and new questions in an ever-expanding chain of events. Aside from possible unease or uncertainty, the recent scientific and technological developments in AI and neurotechnology bring incontestable opportunities for advancing healthcare, progressing scientific knowledge and improving human well-being. Context: three intertwined research fields As a neuroprosthetics researcher, my work was situated on the intersection between three research fields: biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence and fundamental neuroscience. These research fields are synergistically intertwined (seeFigure1), but it is relevant to distinguish their separate connections with the interdisciplinary work in this dissertation to provide some broader context and background to this thesis. Figure 1: Neuroprosthetics research is situated at the intersection of neuroscience, artificial intelligence and medical engineering. These fields are characterized by their own principle research questions, but profit from a synergistic collaboration. From a biomedical engineering perspective, neuroprosthetic interfaces are an illustrative life-improving (hardware) technology. Many steps have been undertaken towards safe and durable electrode interfaces, opening the road for artificial communication with thebrain(Panuccio et al., 2018). Some examples include brain reading interfaces that can help restoring motor function in quadriplegia (Andersen et al., 2019), as well as brain stimulation interfaces for Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, psychiatric symptoms or sensory disorders disorders (Kennedy et al., 2011; Kohl et al., 2014; Li & Cook, 2018; Limousin & Foltynie, 2019). In the sensory domain, especially the success of cochlear vii
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