معرفی
Dr. Michael Kilgard is the Margaret Fonde Jonsson Professor and Interim Executive Director of the Texas Biomedical Device Center at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCSF (1998) and a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UC Berkeley (1993). His primary affiliation is with the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, where he leads research on neural plasticity mechanisms for treating neurological and psychiatric conditions.
His research focuses on vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) paired with sensory/motor training to enhance recovery from stroke, spinal cord injury, tinnitus, PTSD, and neuropathy. Notable achievements include FDA approval of VNS for stroke rehabilitation and development of implantable VNS devices 50x smaller than existing models. Kilgard has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers in Nature, Science, and Neuron, holds 25 U.S. patents, and his work is funded by DARPA, NINDS, and the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation.
Key awards include the UT Regents Outstanding Teaching Award (2009), Chancellor’s Council Teaching Award (2008), and NIDCD grants. His lab, Dr. Kilgard's Lab, collaborates on translational projects like RePlay rehabilitation systems and closed-loop neuromodulation algorithms. Current efforts target PTSD treatment via VNS-enhanced exposure therapy and spinal cord injury recovery through closed-loop VNS-motor training pairings.
Patents include systems for brain plasticity stimulation (Patent 6,221,908, 1998) and paired VNS-motor therapy for stroke (Patents 8,700,145 and 9,333,355). Recent clinical trials demonstrated safety and efficacy in chronic stroke and spinal cord injury patients.
