Research
As a graduate student in the GRIDlab at the University of Washington, I studied the flexibility of the human brain. When a stroke impairs a person’s mobility, their brain adapts to their injuries by reorganizing connections between different areas. My research was ultimately aimed towards enhancing this process to help stroke survivors recover maximum mobility.
The GRIDlab is interested in engineering plasticity using electrical stimulation to help the brain reorganize after a stroke, augmenting the natural flexibility of the brain after an injury. To test this type of stimulation-based therapy, we need reliable, meaningful measurements of connections in the brain so we can understand how these connections change in response to treatment. My dissertation work focused on a measure of brain connections called the cortico-cortical evoked potential. Although broadly used, cortico-cortical evoked potentials are incompletely understood. I used a systematic, quantitative approach to examine fundamental unanswered questions about cortico-cortical evoked potentials.
Engineering Plasticity
Can we direct and enhance the brain's natural ability to reorganize to promote functional recovery after injury?
Connections between individual synapses and within large cortical circuits are always changing to adjust to new information and situations. This plasticity is especially prominent after a major disruption to a system – for instance, the motor system must reorganize after a stroke or a spinal cord injury disrupts movement in order for an individual to regain some or all of their lost function. But this process alone is slow and sometimes insufficient for recovery. By electrically stimulating the brain and using targeted behavioral interventions, I hope to find ways to "engineer plasticity" to improve functional outcomes. Much of this work is done in collaboration with the Center for Neurotechnology, a multi-site, collaborative center with the goal of creating neural devices to treat motor injuries.
Cortico-Cortical Evoked Potentials
How does the brain respond to electrical stimulation, and what can these responses tell us about the functional connectivity of the brain?
Cortico-Cortical Evoked Potentials (CCEPs) are distinctive physiological responses to electrical stimulation in the brain. CCEPs measure how much activity occurs in one part of the brain as a direct result of activity in another part of the brain. Although useful, CCEPs can be difficult to interpret.
