Engineering-Driven Precision Rehabilitation in Hemiparetic Stroke
Yuan Yang
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract: After a unilateral or hemiparetic stroke, damage to the corticofugal projection in the lesioned side of the brain increases the abnormal reliance on motor pathways in the contralesional side of the brain. This has been shown to be the pathophysiological basis for post-stroke spasticity and related motor impairments. Based on computational modeling and well-designed mechtronic setup, we developed a novel human-machine interaction approach that allows the determination of the stroke-induced change to the usage of different motor pathways and its link with post-stroke motor impairments. Using an advanced multimodal brain imaging approach, we found the change to the motor pathways is likely associated with and permitted by a hemispheric shift of sensory processing toward the contralesional sensorimotor areas. To combat these maladaptive functional changes in the sensorimotor system, we developed a high-definition non-invasive electrical brain stimulation intervention that targets specific brain regions in a more precise way than before. The early-phase results from our registered clinical trials in moderate-to-severe impaired stroke individuals demonstrated that this novel intervention can effectively reduce post-stroke motor impairments.
Biography: Dr. Yuan Yang has an interdisciplinary background with his Bachelor's (2008) and Master’s (2010) Degrees in Biomedical Engineering (BME), and Ph.D. (July 2013) in Signal and Image Processing with a focus on machine learning and brain-computer interfaces. After his Ph.D., Dr. Yang had around four-year postdoctoral training (2013-2017) in Bio-Mechanical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. During his postdoc, he also received clinical research training and worked with clinician investigators in several hospitals in Europe. He was a faculty member in Northwestern University and University of Oklahoma before he joined UIUC as an Associate Professor in Bioengineering and Beckman Institute. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in Carle Foundation Hospital and Northwestern University. He is currentlying leading a multi-site engineering-based clinical study laboratory with research spaces in UIUC and Carle Foundation Hospital with the main research topic on stroke rehabilitation, and other research interests in pain modulation, aging and sex differences in the brain. His research includes methodology development, mechanistic studies and registered clinical trials. His research is well-funded by NIH, NSF and American Heart Association, with over 55 peer-reviewed journal publications. He is ad hoc reviewer for NIH, NSF and several international funding agency, and a member of Sigma Xi - The Scientific Research Honor Society, one of the oldest honor societies in US.