Ingvars BirznieksView profile
Research Fellow
Professor Ingvars Birznieks is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Medicine in Sydney, where he leads the Tactile Research Group at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). Previously, he held an academic position as Senior Lecturer (Physiology) at the School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University from 2011 to 2014. Dr. Birznieks is a sensory neurophysiologist specializing in sensory information encoding mechanisms, with research spanning tactile perception, neural coding, and bionic applications. His work integrates neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and clinical rehabilitation to understand how touch receptors encode information and how this knowledge can be applied to develop advanced prosthetics and rehabilitation technologies. His research program covers tactile receptors and sensorimotor control of the human hand, with applications in stroke rehabilitation, diabetic neuropathy, and bionic hand development. His recent publications reveal a strong focus on neural coding mechanisms in tactile perception, particularly the burst gap code for frequency perception, friction sensing mechanisms, and intensity coding. These studies consistently bridge fundamental neuroscience with practical applications in bionics and rehabilitation. His interdisciplinary approach connects neurophysiological findings with engineering solutions for artificial touch. Dr. Birznieks has secured significant grant funding, including ARC Discovery Projects and NHMRC Ideas Grants totaling over $2.5 million, supporting research on neural coding, sensorimotor control, stroke rehabilitation, and bionic technologies. His current major project 'The secret of tiny hand movements to feel and manipulate objects' (ARC DP230100048) investigates how humans use micro-movements to extract tactile information during object manipulation. He actively supervises students across neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and computer science disciplines, with recent publications featuring undergraduate and graduate students as first authors. His research group maintains collaborations with institutions in France and Sweden, providing international research opportunities for students. Dr. Birznieks' laboratory has developed unique non-invasive mechanical stimulation technology that allows precise control of neural communication at the single neuron level, enabling unprecedented investigation of how spiking activity influences perceptual experience.
