NEC Seminar
Speaker: Benjamin Romanauski
Advisors: Dr Michael Moffitt and Dr Michael Jenkins
Title: Epidural Photobiomodulation: The Future of Acute SCI Care
Abstract: Photobiomodulation (PBM) therapy has been shown to improve the recovery of natural motor function in rat models after a spinal cord injury (SCI). Despite having been shown to be effective in animal models, PBM for SCI faces translational challenges. In particular, transcutaneous light delivery does not scale well between rodents and humans because of heating of intervening tissues, the inability to get enough light to the injury site, and the inability to control the dose of light delivery. Epidural PBM (EpiPBM) via a percutaneous device addresses these problems by moving the therapy closer to the neural target, and we expect will enable PBM to be translated into clinical practice.