Movement Recovery Lab Awarded NIH Grant to Develop an Enhanced Tool to Measure Movement Physiology 

The Movement Recovery Lab has been awarded a new grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/ National Institute of Health for their work on “Enhancing Speed and Accuracy of Motor Evoked Potential Recruitment Curve Analysis Using Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling”. The grant will support the development of a tool which could help transform how we measure nervous system control of movement. 

The goal of the Movement Recovery Lab is to understand and repair the central nervous system after injury. To do this, scientists stimulate the brain and spinal cord and measure the muscle responses. The relation between the stimulation intensity and size of the muscle response provides important information about the part of the nervous system that controls movement. Current methods for analyzing muscle responses focus on a single stimulation intensity and face limitations in speed, accuracy, and versatility. The Movement Recovery Lab’s new tool, built on advanced statistical modeling, will address these challenges by providing more precise and comprehensive analysis of how muscles react to stimulation at different intensities. This approach will reduce the number of experimental trials and participants needed, making studies more efficient. Additionally, a user-friendly interface will make the tool accessible to a broader range of researchers. The tool will enable us to understand the condition of the brain and spinal cord and measure the effects of therapy more quickly and accurately. Future applications may allow measurement of the nervous system in real-time to optimize spinal cord stimulation for movement recovery.  

Associate Research Scientist James McIntosh, PhD, is Principal Investigator for this study, with contribution from Data Scientist Vishweshwar (Vishu) Tyagi, MS. The team presented preliminary findings for this project at the Society for Neuroscience last year.  

“I am thrilled that James and Vishu are using advanced statistical and data analytic tools to make our studies more powerful and precise. Their talents in engineering and computer science will speed the application of neural repair to patients,” says Director of the Movement Recovery Lab, Jason B. Carmel, MD, PhD.