Debugging the Brain--BME Associate Professor David Mogul's Work Focuses on the Hippocampus

A seizure in the brain may begin as a sort of premonition, a constellation of symptoms often referred to as an aura. Unusual tastes or smells, tingling sensations, or racing thoughts sometimes accompany feelings of gathering dread, nausea, or lightheadedness. A few seconds to a few hours after such warning signs, a broad range of unpleasant and debilitating effects associated with a seizure may follow, including temporary deafness, tremors or convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Alternatively, seizures may arise with no apparent warning at all. The causes of epilepsy, a condition characterized by repeated seizure activity, are varied, and not all are well understood. More than 20 percent of epilepsy patients have difficulty controlling seizures with standard drug treatments.

IIT Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering David Mogul is investigating new means of limiting or alleviating seizures through manipulation of the brain's electrical activity. Much of Mogul's present research focuses on the electrophysiology of partial epileptic seizures, those arising at a single site or within a few limited foci within the brain.

Dr. Kang-Mieler's Retinal Vascular Research Laboratory Brings Hope for the Visually Impaired

Blindness and visual impairment affects 3.3 million Americans age 40 and over; that is one in 28 Americans. According to the National Eye Institute, this figure is projected to reach 5.5 million by the year 2020. Blindness is not a life threatening disease; however, it reduces one's quality of life. Dr. Jennifer J. Kang-Mieler's research is committed to developing clinical diagnostic tools and investigate disease process and treatment options for a number of blinding diseases such as Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Research Synopsis

Since coming to IIT five years ago, in addition to teaching in the BME Department as an assistant professor, Dr. Kang-Mieler and her team have focused on studying retinal cellular function and retinal blood flow in various diseases. For example, one of the projects involves an in-depth study of thrombosis, the formation of blood clots affecting retinal arteries and veins, and its effect on different retinal cell types and on retinal blood flow using both experimental rat arterial occlusion models and quantitative/computational models.

Her team is also investigating Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), a major cause of blindness in diabetic patients. Almost 50% of diabetic patients will eventually develop some degree of DR. Clinical detection of DR involves loss of capillary perfusion or when new vessel leakage is detected by fluorescein angiography. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Kang-Mieler, during the many years between the initial diagnosis of diabetes and the clinical detection of DR, significant and irreversible changes in the retinal vasculature silently develop. Because of that, it is important to focus on preventative efforts during the early stages, before any anatomical changes or clinically detectable pathology occurs. A major challenge is to develop a technique that is sensitive enough to detect these small early changes in vasculature