My experience in the lab has been a little atypical, as I have two projects I’m working on with two different secondary mentors. One of my projects is with Dr. George McConnell, and I’m working on Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) to treat gait symptoms in Parkinsonian rats. Prior research has shown that DBS in the Subthalamic nucleus (STN) can correct the negative effects of certain symptoms of Parkinson’s disease such as tremor and bradykinesia (slowness of movement). While the STN seemingly has little effect on gait symptoms, DBS in the Pedunculopontine Nucleus, a related structure, may improve gait in Parkinsonian rats, which is the question my project is exploring.
My second project is a coding project using matlab for data analyses. I am working on a function to analyze pain and paresthesia maps filled out be patients of DBS treatment in order to quantify the effectiveness of the treatment.
Both of these projects fit within one of the larger projects of the lab, which is figuring out how to use DBS to treat certain symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, first in rats and hopefully somewhere down the line in humans.
