RESTORE Lab
Penn Neurosurgery
// Research areas

Five threads, one translational program.

The lab works at the boundary between intraoperative neurophysiology, computational analysis, and surgical planning. Hover any acronym below for a quick definition; click any thread heading to jump.

Movement disorders — intraoperative neurophysiology during awake DBS.

The lab records single-unit and local-field-potential activity during awake DBS implantation for Parkinson's disease and essential tremor, and uses high-density ECoG arrays in collaboration with Precision Neuroscience.

Work threads:

  • Imaging-guided directional DBS for Parkinson's disease and essential tremor.
  • Cuneiform-nucleus DBS for levodopa-resistant freezing of gait — Phase I pilot, multicenter trial supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
  • MRgFUS for tremor (essential tremor, parkinsonian tremor).
  • Cerebellar DBS for movement disorders in cerebral palsy.

Epilepsy — characterizing the seizure onset zone.

The lab uses SEEG recordings to characterize seizure onset zones in drug-resistant focal epilepsy, including thalamic SEEG and quantitative biomarkers such as neural fragility. Long-term outcomes work tracks LITT for mesial temporal epilepsy.

Work threads:

  • Thalamic SEEG for centromedian and anterior nucleus targets in generalized epilepsy.
  • Quantitative SOZ biomarkers including neural fragility and high-frequency oscillation rates.
  • Long-term outcomes of LITT for mesial temporal epilepsy.
  • Closed-loop responsive neurostimulation (RNS) for multifocal and bitemporal epilepsy.

Brain–computer interfaces — volitional control after neurologic injury.

The lab's BCI work spans intraoperative cortical recording with high-density ECoG arrays during essential-tremor focused-ultrasound cases, and a long-running implantable BCI program for hand-grasp restoration in spinal cord injury.

Work threads:

  • Implantable BCI for volitional hand-grasp restoration in cervical SCI (5+-year follow-up published).
  • High-density 1024-channel ECoG decoding of finger / hand kinematics — Precision Neuroscience collaboration.
  • Single-hemisphere bimanual decoding (M.S.E. thesis-level work).
  • Preferential subspace identification (PSID) for movement-speed decoding from M1 ECoG.

Pain & neuromodulation — refractory back pain and trigeminal neuralgia.

Surgical management of refractory pain and applications of closed-loop neuromodulation. The lab's clinical practice includes SCS, PNS, and VNS applications, plus stereotactic radiosurgery and microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia.

Work threads:

  • Refractory back pain — SCS with closed-loop sensing approaches.
  • Trigeminal neuralgia — microvascular decompression, gamma-knife radiosurgery, and trigeminal nerve field stimulation for refractory cases.
  • Treatment-resistant depression — stereo-EEG workup for closed-loop deep brain stimulation.

Computational methods — tools the rest of the lab runs on.

Open-source software work supporting the experimental program. Thalamus is the lab's closed-loop multimodal data-capture system; nSTAT is the time-series and point-process toolbox.

Work threads:

// Funding & collaborators

Supported by

This work is funded in part by the NIH K12 Neurosurgeon Research Career Development Program (NINDS), the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (which supports the multicenter trial of cuneiform-nucleus DBS for levodopa-resistant freezing of gait), and the Vazirani Fund for Spinal Cord Research at Penn Medicine, which supports the lab's spinal cord injury BCI program.

Vazirani Fund for Spinal Cord Research · Penn Medicine Penn Neurosurgery