Abstract
The Neurorobotics Research Group at the NIH Clinical Center combines robotics and neural interfacing to create new ways to study and treat movement disorders. As an example of this interdisciplinary approach, this talk will focus on our robotic exoskeleton to improve walking in children with knee extension deficiency or crouch gait. We will introduce our control strategies for exoskeleton-mediated gait training, which are underpinned by fundamental principles of motor learning neuroscience. Next, we will review results from an observational study that verify our control strategy elicits the desired task-specific increases in muscle output during overground walking. We will then discuss translation of the exoskeleton design from a prototype into a clinical intervention, including initial results from our ongoing interventional trial of community delivered exoskeleton training in children with cerebral palsy, spina bifida and muscular dystrophy. Finally, we will present our emerging efforts to improve the human-machine interface in pediatric exoskeletons, including new methods for sensing user intent and effort as well as novel approaches to real-time adaptation of exoskeleton delivered torques. We will consider these in the context of other recent advances in the field and discuss future directions for the use of neurorobotics to improve functional recovery in children with neurological disorders.
Bio
Thomas C. Bulea is a tenure track investigator in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department at the NIH Clinical Center where he directs the Neurorobotics Research Group. Dr. Bulea received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, where his research focused on development of neuroprostheses to restore mobility in individuals with paralysis. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and a visiting post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Houston, both focused on the use of electroencephalography (EEG) to study cortical activation patterns relating to standing and walking function. His research focuses on developing novel neural interfacing and device-based approaches to the study and treatment of movement disorders. Dr. Bulea also serves as an Associate Editor of Wearable Technologies and IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.
