CMU Neural Engineering Virtual Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Patrick Ganzer, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Miami
Abstract: Damage to neural circuits leads to debilitating dysfunction, ranging from decreased motor control to autonomic dysregulation. New & exciting evidence is emerging using a novel therapeutic approach, ‘Targeted Plasticity Therapy’ (TPT), for rewiring these broken neural circuits and promoting recovery of function. TPT uses brief bursts of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) precisely paired with events during therapy to enhance neural plasticity. Following VNS, plasticity enhancing neuromodulators are released coincident with task-specific neural activity. Over time, the active neural circuits during VNS demonstrate anatomical and physiological plasticity subserving functional recovery, now observed across a range of physiological systems (e.g., the auditory, fear, reward, and motor systems). This presentation will also overview new work in this space – focused on new ways to provide neuromodulation to different nerves for therapeutic purposes.
About the Speaker: Dr. Patrick D. Ganzer is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Miami (jointly appointed at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Department of Biomedical Engineering). He received his undergraduate degree in 2008 from King’s College (Pennsylvania; Summa Cum Laude). In 2013, he received his Ph.D. from Drexel University, conducting biomedical engineering and neuroscience research in preclinical models of spinal cord injury. Dr. Ganzer then completed his postdoctoral fellowship in 2017 at the University of Texas at Dallas and the Texas Biomedical Device Center with Drs. Robert Rennaker and Michael Kilgard (research focused on enhancing neuroplasticity after sensorimotor injury using targeted vagus nerve stimulation). Dr. Ganzer also has significant experience researching and developing neurotechnology in industry, working at Battelle Memorial Institute from 2017-2021 in the Medical Devices and Neuromodulation division. At Battelle, Dr. Ganzer’s team won ‘Idea Of The Year’ in 2019 and ‘Publication of The Year’ in 2020. He received the Kumar New Investigator Award from The North American Neuromodulation Society in 2022. Dr. Ganzer’s neurotechnology teams have translated their work to multiple clinical trials, and have received multiple awards for their impact on the field of translational neurotechnology.