Cagnan Group
Our goal is to selectively and dynamically modulate neural synchrony in order to achieve controlled effects on neural communication. Thus, we aim to establish the role of synchrony in healthy behaviour and identify novel ways of treating disturbed synchrony in disease.
Our everyday actions, from decision making to motor control, are thought to involve information exchange through transient, often rhythmic, neural synchrony across multiple brain regions. Emerging evidence suggests that a range of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), essential tremor (ET), dystonia and dyskinesia could be attributed to dysfunction of this fundamental neural property. To date, the functional and pathological roles of transient neural synchrony remains unknown, a critical link that could be leveraged to identify novel ways of treating aberrant synchrony. We aim to utilize deep brain stimulation (DBS) in order to selectively and dynamically modulate synchrony in the cortico-basal ganglia loop to establish the functional role of transient synchrony, and its pathological role in PD and ET.
- selective neuromodulation – modulating neural activity of interest while sparing other physiological function
- dynamic neuromodulation – adjusting neuromodulation according to the current state of the neural system
- mimicking nature – learning from spontaneous neural processes how to modulate neural synchrony
- closed-loop stimulation
- remote symptom monitoring
As our knowledge on neurological and psychiatric disorders increase, we are able to leverage implantable and wearable bioelectronics to deliver adaptable and individually optimised therapies to patients. Our long term research aim is to identify and leverage critical disease mechanisms in order to deliver dynamic therapies using a combination of invasive and non-invasive technologies.
- Deep Brain Stimulation (sensing and stimulating)
- Theoretical Modelling (single unit to population level models)
- Neuroimaging (EEG, MEG)
- Non-invasive Stimulation
- Signal processing
We are committed to fostering an inclusive work environment that celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunity within our group and the wider MRC BNDU.
Like other Groups at the MRC BNDU, we are committed to best practice in open research. We have created and curated a range of primary data, metadata and related resources that can be readily downloaded by external users from the MRC BNDU's Data Sharing Platform. We highlight below just a few examples of the datasets and other resources we have shared for the benefit of our stakeholders.
