As the baby boomers age, the number of adults who suffer from frequent falls, gait disorders, cognitive impairment, dementia, and other neurological diseases continues to increase dramatically. New understandings and therapeutic approaches are needed. Our research aims to improve the personalized treatment of age-related movement, cognition, and mobility disorders and to alleviate the burden associated with them.

We leverage a combination of clinical, engineering, and neuroscience expertise:

• To gain new understandings into the physiologic and pathophysiologic mechanisms that contribute to cognitive and motor function, the factors that influence these functions, and their changes with aging and disease (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, Huntington's).
• To develop new methods and tools for the early detection and tracking of cognitive and motor decline.
• To develop and evaluate novel methods for the prevention and treatment of gait, falls, and cognitive function.

We seek students who can contribute to the above aims. This involves, for example, studies based on:

• Signal processing, machine and deep learning to extract meaningful information from wearable sensors
• Non-invasive brain stimulation (e.g., tDCS, tACS) to evaluate its impact on gait, balance and cognitive function
• Virtual-reality to improve dual-tasking, gait and cognitive function
• Identifying early signs of gait disturbances like freezing of gait and falls