Gianluca Lazzi
University of Southern California, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Neuroprosthetics, such as retinal implants, can bypass damaged parts of the brain or eye. They do not stop the underlying disease from progressing, however, and many conditions that cause blindness or dementia have no effective therapy.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Engineering
- Topics
neurostimulation
electrical stimulation
neuroregeneration
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Design and optimize electrical stimulation waveforms that can reprogram the structure of damaged neural networks, using both experiments and computational modeling.
- Create mesoscale connectivity atlases that map how global neural networks are wired after exposure to electric fields and field gradients.
- Develop predictive multiscale computational models of neural activity in healthy, degenerated and electrically stimulated neural networks.
- Engineer programmable implantable electronic systems that deliver short-term electrical stimulation to neural tissue in the eye or brain.
More about the research
This project asks whether electrical stimulation could instead help damaged neurons and neural networks repair and regenerate. The goal is to delay vision loss and the neural degeneration seen in dementia.
Why it matters
Blinding diseases and dementia carry enormous human and economic costs and especially affect underrepresented groups. Devices that promote repair of damaged neurons, rather than only bypassing them, could eventually help delay vision loss and neural degeneration. Stimulation waveforms, connectivity atlases and implantable electronics from this work could inform future therapies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Paul George
Stanford University, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Determine how electrically stimulated neural stem cell transplants delivered on ElectricStem conductive polymer scaffolds recruit and alter the brain's own stem cells after stroke in rodents.
Metin Uz
Cleveland State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Design, fabricate and characterize a biodegradable piezoelectric platform with a flexible cuff electrode, measuring its electrical output and lab degradation profile to control stimulation conditions on the pudendal nerve.
Wendy Liu
Stanford University, CA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Determine which ultrasound parameters effectively stimulate retinal ganglion cells in the living eye, using a transparent ultrasound transducer together with two-photon calcium imaging of genetically encoded calcium indicators in animal models.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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