Newborns who are born premature or infants who suffer brain injury are at risk for motor problems. The common motor skills of reaching and grasping that infants have to learn can be weaker on one side of the body, depending on the site of the brain injury. These skills are routinely practiced with an occupational therapist once or twice a week, to help the infant strengthen these skills. A high intensity therapy program of constraint induced movement therapy (CIMT) may be available for the infant, but it takes from 40-120 hours total treatment time for most infants to improve their motor skills.
Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) stimulates a branch of a major nerve by the ear, called the vagus nerve, that may help improve your child's ability to learn motor skills. CIMT involves placing a soft mitt constraint on the stronger arm and hand while encouraging your child to use the weaker arm and hand during intensive therapy sessions. By using both CIMT and the nerve stimulation together, we hope your child's movement skills will improve more than with therapy alone.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of taVNS to improve motor skills when paired with the minimal amount of CIMT and whether a measure of the strength of the brain circuit to the arm and hand muscles can tell us how well a child may respond to this therapy.

The purpose of this research study is to examine the effect of a brain stimulation training to improve the function of brain-spinal cord- muscle connections.Because brain-to-muscle pathways are very important in our movement control, restoring function of these pathways may improve movement problems after injuries. Spinal cord injury causes damage to the brain-to-muscle connection. However, when the injury is "incomplete", there is a possibility that some of the brain-to-muscle pathways are still connected and may be trained to improve movement function. For examining brain-to-muscle pathways, we use a transcranial magnetic stimulator. We hope that the results of this research study will help us develop new treatments for people who have movement disabilities. This study will require about 42 visits over the first 14 weeks, and another 6 visits over an additional 3 months. Each visit will take about 1 ½ hours.

The purpose of the study is to examine whether certain neck strengthening exercises result in change in size of the neck muscles being targeted.

Musculoskeletal Ultrasound is a non invasive, safe tool that will be used to measure the size of certain muscles in your neck. This will allow us to determine if these muscles actually get bigger in response to targeted exercise. Muscle size is a factor associated with strength.

This study will help us tease out the time it takes to create neck muscle hypertrophy, or increase in muscle size, in order to develop effective protocols for neck strengthening which may be useful in the management of chronic neck pain.

Weakness in certain neck muscles may be associated with the development of neck pain and we hope to determine effective training protocols for these neck muscle groups.

Individuals with chronic cervical spinal cord injury will complete a 10-week training protocol where they receive non-invasive brain stimulation and feedback on the size of the corresponding muscle response (wrist extensor). We will assess the impact of the brain stimulation training on 1) the brain-to-spinal cord-to-muscle connection and 2) motor functions of the arm and hand. Also, brain and spine magnetic resonance imaging will be collected before and after the training. The imaging measurements will tell us about how spinal damage, brain function, and brain structure relate to motor presentation and the response to the training.

Stroke survivors routinely report disabling emotional health challenges and inability to find emotional wellness support. This project will increase emotional support within a stroke rehabilitation occupational therapy (OT) and/or speech therapy (ST) rehabilitation program. OT and/or ST provided via telerehabilitation will be enhanced with a type of emotional wellness therapy that teaches stroke survivors various strategies to better address anxiety, worry and dread.

We are looking to examine the various factors that contribute to the changes seen with Physical Therapy for chronic neck pain. These factors include the components of care involving the way a patient perceives their pain or disability, as well as the interaction with their care giver, which contribute to the effect of the Physical Therapy (PT) treatment. The study will assign subjects to one of three groups. The first group will receive a manual therapy treatment approach, the second will receive a simulated manual therapy treatment approach and the third will receive no treatment and act as a waitlist control. This design will allow us to tease out the effects of the treatment itself compared with the other factors which may contribute to change as well as any improvement which occurs as result of natural history. You will be seen for an initial assessment where you will complete surveys and measurements will be performed looking at how far you can move and the way that you move your neck. You will then be seen for 3 additional visits weekly over the next three weeks if you are assigned to the manual therapy or simulated manual therapy group. You will be seen for an initial visit and a follow up after three weeks if you are assigned to the waitlist/control group. All groups will complete the surveys and have repeat measurements performed at the final follow up visit.

We will determine if aerobic exercise (AEx) and/or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are effective in treating symptoms of depression following stroke. This project is based on the idea that depression negatively affects the brain so that it doesn't change in the same way following treatment, the result being less effective recovery. We believe that effective treatment for depression will help improve how the brain in people with depression responds to other types of treatment. That is, effectively treating depression will enable individuals to better recover other forms of function following their stroke.

Adherence to home exercise is important to achieve upper limb recovery after stroke. However, adherence is typically low. Therefore, a new home exercise program with an Apple Watch and iPhone app was created to improve adherence to upper limb exercises for stroke survivors at home. Participants will come to our lab to experience the new home exercise program. Participants who opt for home use will bring the device home to try the new home exercise program at home. The purpose of this study is for researchers to examine usability and feasibility of participants using the new home exercise program.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test if upper limb task practice and muscle activity training improve upper limb function in stroke survivors. Participants will be asked to come to the laboratory 3 times a week for 6 weeks to receive upper limb task practice and/or muscle activity training. Participants will also come to the laboratory for additional 3 visits for assessments of upper extremity function. The total duration of the study will be 2.5 months.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between reflexes in the leg and the presence of neuropathic pain. The researchers are recruiting 30 individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) total, 15 individuals with neuropathic pain due to SCI and 15 individuals without neuropathic pain. For this portion of the study, there are 2 visits. The first visit will examine cutaneous reflexes in the leg. During the second visit, the study team will assess sensation in the leg and administer questionnaires about pain, functioning, and quality of life.

The purpose of the second part of the study is to examine the effect of reflex training in the leg to decrease neuropathic pain. For this, the researchers are recruiting 15 individuals with neuropathic pain due to spinal cord injury to participate in the reflex training procedure. The study involves approximately 50 visits with a total study duration of about 6.5 months (3 months for baseline and training phases followed by 1 month and 3 month follow-up visits).