Reflex, Movement & Spasticity Lab

In the Reflex, Movement & Spasticity (RMS) laboratory we study neuromuscular properties and movement of different joints in both upper and lower extremities in healthy subjects and in people with stroke and spinal cord injury (SCI). The overall goal is to develop advanced engineering models (1) to investigate the mechanisms underlying impaired function by characterizing the relative contributions of muscular and reflexive mechanisms to movement impairments and functional outcomes in these patient populations, (2) to determine the impact of specific pharmacological and/or physical interventions on these physiological measures, functional outcomes, and their relationship, and (3) to explore the natural history of these physiological measures over 1-year post-stroke and try to predict the recovery of functional outcomes over 1-year based on the physiological measures at 1-month post-stroke.   

Using advanced system identification techniques, we characterize the neuromuscular properties of the joint and separate its muscular and reflexive components by applying small pseudorandom binary sequences to the joint.

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