Eberhard Fetz

Eberhard Erich Fetz (born February 5, 1940 in Zwenkau , Saxony ) is a German-born American neurophysiologist .

Life

In 1947 Eberhard Fetz's family left Germany for the United States. There he studied physics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (bachelor's degree in 1961) and received his doctorate in 1967 with Patrick David Wall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the thesis Pyramidal Tract Effects on Spinal Cord Interneurons . From 1967 to 1969 he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle , Washington . In 1969 he was Assistant Professor, 1975 Associate Professor and 1980 Full Professor at the University of Washington. In addition to his professorship at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, he worked at the Regional Primate Research Center (Head of Neuroscience Division) from 1995 to 1999 and then until 2005 as Associate Director for Neuroscience at the Washington National Primate Research Center at the University of Washington.

As a neurophysiologist, he became internationally known for his work on brain-computer interfaces and experiments with primates. As early as 1969 he published groundbreaking findings on the conditioning of the discharge behavior of individual neurons. Using operant conditioning , monkeys learned to control the activity of individual neurons in a targeted manner. With his colleagues, Eberhard Fetz managed to train monkeys in such a way that it was possible for an animal to move its own, temporarily paralyzed arm in a controlled manner via the brain-computer interface.

From 1972 to 1974 he was a research fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation ( Sloan Research Fellowship ). In 2004/2005 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for one year . There he dealt with new ways of representing brain function using graphic and multimedia techniques. Since 2017 he has been Adjunct Professor at the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington.

Fonts (selection)

• EE Fetz: Operant conditioning of cortical unit activity . In: Science . tape 163 , no. 3870 , 1969, p. 955-958 , doi : 10.1126 / science.163.3870.955 .
• Eberhard E. Fetz, Paul D. Cheney: Postspike facilitation of forelimb muscle activity by primate corticomotoeuronal cells . In: Journal of Neurophysiology . tape 44 , no. 4 , 1980, p. 751-772 .
• PD Cheney,. E. Fetz: Functional classes of prime corticomotoneuronal cells and their relation to active force . In: Journal of Neurophysiology . tape 44 , no. 4 , 1980, p. 773-791 .
• EE Fetz: Are movement parameters recognizably coded in the activity of single neurons? In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences . tape 15 , 1992, pp. 679-690 .
• Venkatesh N. Murthy, EE Fetz: Coherent 25- to 35-Hz oscillations in the sensorimotor cortex of awake behaving monkeys . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA . tape 89 , 1992, pp. 5670-5674 .
• VN Murthy, EE Fetz: Oscillatory activity in sensorimotor cortex of awake monkeys: Synchronization of local field potentials and relation to behavior . In: Journal of Neurophysiology . tape 76 , no. 6 , 1996, pp. 3949-3967 .
• EE Fetz: Volitional control of neural activity: implications for brain-computer interfaces . In: Journal of Physiology . tape 579.3 , 2007, p. 571-579 , doi : 10.1113 / jphysiol.2006.127142 .

literature

• Eberhard Erich Fetz. (PDF) Curriculum Vitae. University of Washington, accessed July 3, 2019 . 
• Eberhard E. Fetz: My liberating year at the Wissenschaftskolleg . In: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Ed.): Yearbook 2004/2005 . 2006, ISBN 3-934045-07-3 , ISSN  0724-326X , p. 58–64 ( wiko-berlin.de [PDF] with biographical notes).

Web links

• Homepage at the University of Washington
• Entry at the Center for Neurotechnology

Individual evidence

1. ^ Past Fellows. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, accessed July 3, 2019 . 
2. ^ Fellows: Eberhard E. Fetz. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, accessed on July 3, 2019 .