A Transformative Neurophysiological Assessment: Towards Improved Prognosis and Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury.

Project ID: 2531ad1564

(You will need this ID for your application)

UCL Lead department: Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering

Project Summary:

• Why this research is important This research is being done to improve diagnosis and optimise recovery potential after spinal cord injury (SCI). Clinically, SCI patients are diagnosed as having “complete” or “incomplete” injuries. A “complete” injury means no remaining motor or sensory function; however, post-mortem studies have identified spared neurological pathways in most people that were diagnosed with complete SCI. We know that spared tracts can be strengthened to recover motor function, but improved diagnosis is required to identify the spared pathways and to define the best way to strengthen them.
• Who you will be working with: You will be working with engineers, clinical scientists and therapists who are based between the Dept of Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering and the London Spinal Cord Injury Centre at the RNOH in Stanmore. • What you will be doing You will be designing and developing the hardware and software of a neurophysiological assessment system that enables clinical staff to conduct tests on SCI patients without much training, automatically processes the data and produces a report that provides useful and understandable information about the patient’s injury. You will test the system on able-bodied people and people that have recently had an SCI. You will explore the data using AI tools to correlate recovery after SCI with the first assessment. • Who we are looking for We are looking for an Engineer with programming skills who is interested in working on highly translatable research, working closely with patients and clinicians.