Our brain, the mysterious Black Box. That incredible structure enclosed inside the skull that controls hundreds of unconscious actions during our daily lives. The black box is that fascinating place which is behind humankind's greatest’s achievements. Birthplace of creativity, thought, love and passion.

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The Black Box is a neuroscience event part of the Convergence Initiative and the DART course at Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts. The Convergence Sci-Art/Art-Sci Conferences, of which The Black Box is part, is a series focussed on the crossover of disciplines with science, especially arts and communication. The talks cover subjects like the influence of media on modern science, the public perception of the scientific method, neuroscience popular misconceptions, neuroscience and technology in the medical practice, or science immersed artistic practice.

This year, the Convergence Initiative in partnership with the Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience Program and the Technology Platforms of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, and the Faculty of Fine Arts of Concordia University, is pleased to introduce Dr Stefanie Blain-Moraes.

Trained at University of Toronto as a biomedical engineer (B.A.Sc., PhD) and rehabilitation sciences (PhD), Stefanie completed a NIDRR and a CHIR postdoctoral fellowships in brain-computer interfaces and consciousness and anaesthesia, at the University of Michigan. She also has an ARCT in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music. Her research interests lie in developing novel methods of communication and interaction for individuals who are unable to move and speak, among those, Biomusic.

Biomusic is an affective technology that records physiological signals, detects emotions therein and translates the results to sound in real-time. Biomusic has a wide range of potential applications. Users who can benefit from Biomusic are minimally communicative individuals and their caregivers, including people with dementia, people with severe and multiple disabilities, as well as people with alexithymia – a condition that entails an inability to identify emotions in the self. In parallel to the detection of emotions, Biomusic can also be useful for stress monitoring and biofeedback applications.