Trisha Kesar
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Walking well depends on strong muscles, a working nervous system, and the brain's ability to adjust movement on the fly. After a stroke, or as memory and thinking decline in aging, these abilities break down.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
- Topics
stroke
gait rehabilitation
footdrop
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Develop a model predictive controller that uses portable ultrasound readings of muscle fatigue to automatically set functional electrical stimulation intensity for correcting footdrop in stroke survivors.
- Compare the new ultrasound-guided, closed-loop FES system with conventional FES during treadmill and overground walking in people with one-sided weakness after stroke.
- Compare split-belt treadmill adaptation, a measure of how flexibly people adjust their walking, among older adults with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and healthy aging, alongside gait and cognitive tests.
- Track whether walking adaptation and gait performance worsen over repeated visits as mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease progress.
- Test the feasibility of split-belt aerobic walking exercise as a treatment to improve mobility and cognition in people with MCI and Alzheimer's disease.
More about the research
People walk more slowly, fall more often, and lose independence. This research looks at walking problems in two groups: stroke survivors and older adults with cognitive decline. It asks how to measure these problems and how technology or exercise might help.
Why it matters
Stroke is a leading cause of disability, and footdrop raises the risk of falls. A fatigue-resistant FES system could help stroke survivors walk farther and more safely. For older adults with MCI or Alzheimer's disease, a lab test of walking flexibility could serve as a sensitive marker of combined thinking and movement decline. Split-belt walking exercise may also become a safe treatment to support mobility and cognition.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tanvi Bhatt
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), mild pulses that contract the quadriceps of the weaker leg, improves stability and limb support during 12 sessions of treadmill reactive balance training in people with moderate to severe chronic stroke.
Pierce Boyne
University of Cincinnati, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine whether high-intensity interval walking training or moderate-intensity aerobic training safely produces larger, lasting gains in walking capacity in 156 people with chronic stroke, in a 3-site randomized trial.
David Ziegler
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Psychology
Determine the minimum effective dose of MediTrain, a closed-loop digital meditation program that trains focused attention, for improving cognitive control and reducing stress in older adults, using a nationwide mobile randomized controlled trial of 3,240 participants.
The school
Emory University: 70 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 286 research doctorates a year.
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