Expertise:
Clinical neurophysiology
I am also part of a national team involving researchers
from NIH, private institutes, and other academic institutions,
which is developing a primate model of an implantable cortical
visual prosthesis, which may eventually partially restore
vision to blind people. We have successfully demonstrated
feasibility of the approach in a monkey, have now been awarded
an NIH grant to replicate and extend these findings. We will
implant a second monkey by the end of 2002. Not mentioned
by name in the above discourse are the many students that
have worked in my laboratory and made significant contributions
to these achievements, to whom I am grateful.
These three research projects mesh well with the interests
of my colleagues and the stated intermediate-term goals of
this institution. My epilepsy grant enhances the Hospital’s
plans to expand our visibility and capture a greater share
of the epilepsy market in Chicago. The visual prosthesis
project will play in integral part in the recently approved
Center for Neural Computation and Engineering on campus.
Many of the faculty in this project are on the newly formed
Computational Neuroscience Committee. The visual prosthesis
project has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to attract
private donors. Much of the same technology we are developing
for it can be used in the motor prosthesis research of Dr.
Nicho Hatsopoulos, the chronic pain management and movement
disorder implants used by Dr. Richard Penn, and the possible
development of an implantable “epilepsy defibrillator” as
discussed by Dr. John Milton’s group. Our growing ability
to locate language-related areas in the cortex will likely
spawn my next NIH application, and will provide a means for
validating future functional MRI studies of language emanating
from the Brain Research Imaging Center. This is consistent
with the University’s plan to promote the area of medical
imaging.
Specific research projects:
-- EEG
-- evoked potentials
-- epilepsy
-- subdural recordings
-- EEG source reconstruction
-- functional imaging
-- clinical neurophysiology |
