Microvolt · a hands-on course in neuroengineering
Hear a neuron before you read about one.
A self-paced curriculum for a biomedical engineering student who wants to go deep on the brain: brain-computer interfaces, neural recording and stimulation, and the devices built from them. You build first and understand second, because the theory lands harder when it explains something you have already watched happen on your own bench.
- Promise oneYou will touch the thing before you are asked to understand it. Every explainer opens by pointing at something you have already seen.
- Promise twoYou can always breeze past, and you can always go deeper. Deep dives are collapsed, and each one tells you how many minutes it costs.
- Promise threeNo hype. Real numbers, real safety rules, and "we don't know" said out loud where it is true.
Start here
Two pages, then a projectThe six territories of neuroengineering
"Brain waves" is one small corner. Here is the whole field and the careers each part leads to.
Read slowly · 10 minThe safety charter
Two rules you will never break, and the reasoning behind each. The seriousness with which you treat this is itself a credential.
Then · 6 minSet up a bench
From zero dollars to a real instrument, in tiers. Buy the smallest one that lets you start this week.
Then pick one first project
All of Phase 1Project A: The SpikerBox
Hear action potentials from a cockroach leg on a speaker, with an amplifier you built for about twenty dollars. The hello-world of neural engineering.
ProjectProject B: One channel of you
Alpha EEG from one instrumentation amplifier, a driven-right-leg circuit, and gold cup electrodes. Close your eyes and a bump appears at 10 Hz. Open them and it vanishes.
ProjectProject C: Muscle to motion
Forearm EMG drives a servo, a game, or a cursor. The fastest reliable "control something with your nervous system" you can build.
ProjectProject D: Eyes as a joystick
Electrooculography. Two electrodes beside the eyes, a near-DC amplifier, and a cursor that follows your gaze. Weirdly simple, and the first step of an assistive speller.
The phases
See the whole mapNot a timeline. Each phase has several projects to choose between, the theory that attaches to what you built, and a "ready when" check that is about what you can do, not how long it took. Skip ahead whenever you like; every page tells you what it assumes.
Threads that run the whole way
All threadsResearch, clinic, portfolio, math, reading, community, and career. These are not phases. They start in the first month and never stop.
The research ladder
Volunteer, then paid, then named on a poster, then co-author. It takes two years, so it starts in the first month. The emails that get replies, the offer that gets you in, and the programs that pay for summers.
ThreadThe clinic
Sleep technologist, EEG technologist, intraoperative neuromonitoring. Shadowing the epilepsy unit, an awake DBS implantation, a cochlear implant activation, a stroke rehab gym. The wings only count if you have stood in a hospital.
ThreadPortfolio and writing
Build logs, characterization reports, reproduction write-ups, one-page memos, a poster, a personal site. Engineers who can write a clear page get promoted, and a resume cannot show judgment where a write-up can.
ThreadThe math track
Linear algebra, then signals and systems, then probability and Bayesian estimation, then control, then enough electromagnetism to reason about dipoles in conductors. In that order, each attached to the phase that needs it.
ThreadThe reading track
Kandel a chapter a week as the backbone, then the texts for each spine, the papers to read per phase, and the journals to skim monthly. One paper a week for four years is two hundred papers.
ThreadCommunity
NeurotechX and its student club (found one if the campus lacks it), BMES and IEEE EMBS, the BCI Society, the OpenBCI forum, Neuromatch's network, BioUtah. Where the people are, and why showing up works.
How the site works
- Skim, Read, Deep. A switch in the header on every explainer. Skim shows the title, one figure, and the short version. Deep opens every deep dive.
- Bench mode. Strips a project page to steps, parts, and safety in big type, for a phone at the soldering iron. It also prints cleanly.
- Dotted terms. Hover or tap for a one-sentence definition. Every definition comes from one glossary.
- Recall prompts. Answer one and it enters a review queue that resurfaces it days later. Spaced retrieval is the most effective study technique there is.
- Artifacts, not points. Progress is the list of plots, numbers, and build logs you have produced. It lives on this device and you can export it.
- Simulators for everything. An EEG simulator, an amplifier playground, a neuron, a head model, a cochlear implant, and more, so the theory works before you own a single electrode. And a live plotter for when you do.