Dr. Bradley Voytek

The Wired article Removing Part of Skull Makes for Better Brain Scans said

Removing a chunk of the skull can make way for stronger, clearer signals from a common method of monitoring brainwaves. The skull-free electroencephalography could make neural prostheses like bionic arms or eyes less invasive.
 
“It’s notoriously hard to have a long-term electrode implanted in the brain,” said University of California at Berkeley neuroscientist Bradley Voytek, lead author of the study to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. So if you can get around that by just having a small hole drilled into the skull, that would be very helpful.”
 
Implanting electrodes requires cutting through the dura, the outermost protective layer of the brain, which can cause scar tissue and damage nearby neurons, Voytek said. “If someone’s had a stroke or they’re paralyzed, in the future, the goal of the surgeon is to be able to implant the electrodes into the person’s brain.”
 
Placing an implant between the skull and the dura may make neural implants less dangerous.

Bradley Voytek, Ph.D. is Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
 
Brad studies the role that neuronal oscillations play in human cognition, with a specific focus on the role that neuroplasticity plays in cognition. He works with patients with brain damage or implanted electrodes to learn about how different brain regions communicate in memory and attention. He studies how patients with brain damage recover from stroke or other kinds of neurological damage.
 
He coauthored Hemicraniectomy: A New Model for Human Electrophysiology with High Spatio-temporal Resolution, Cerebral metabolic dysfunction and impaired vigilance in recently abstinent methamphetamine abusers, and Differences in Regional Brain Metabolism Associated With Marijuana Abuse in Methamphetamine Abusers, and authored Emergent basal ganglia pathology within computational models. Read the full list of his publications!
 
Brad earned his bachelors degree in psychology at the University of Southern California in 2002. He earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 with the dissertation Frontal and Basal Ganglia Contributions to Memory and Attention.
 
Watch TEDxBerkeley – Bradley Voytek and Computational Analysis Methods and Issues in Human Cognitive Neuroscience. Read his blog. Follow his Twitter feed.