CURRENT RESEARCH

Clinical Research

DBS for Essential Tremor Study. Click Here for details.

Laboratory Research

A Human Cortical Prosthetic to assist severly paralyzed patients

This study, under way at the Andersen Lab at Caltech and Huntington Memorial Hospital, has the goal of developing a means of communication with the external world for severely paralyzed or “locked-in” patients. A parietal cortical brain implant is being developed, capable of interpreting a patient’s plans for movement and allowing the patient to control a computer cursor, and eventually a prosthetic arm.

Moveable Electrodes

One of the limiting factors in the development of cortical prosthetic applications has been the difficulty of maintaining long-term recordings of neurons. This project, under way at the Andersen, Burdick, and Tai labs at Caltech, and utilizing MEMS technology, has the goal of developing “smart” electrodes capable of optimizing their position with respect to near-by neurons in the brain in order to increase the longevity of recording signals.