1. What is your favorite part about neuromodulation work?
We get to help people who are really suffering, and who have gotten no relief from other therapies. In some cases, we can even tell them why the treatment is working and show them their brain actually changing, and that's amazing for psychiatry.
2. What is your favorite kind of neuromodulation technique and/or equipment and why?
Deep brain stimulation and related surgical technologies. They let us get directly into the circuits that cause and perpetuate mental illness, and the newest devices allow us to directly observe the human brain in ways that have never before been possible.
3. What kind of conditions do you treat with neuromodulation?
Mainly treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, with a focus on depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
4. Any sparks of inspiration you would like to share?
"In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
I've been lucky to repeatedly be in the right place at the right time. In institutions that had the capabilities to make really big breakthroughs if someone saw the pieces and put them together. But you have to be looking for those pieces. UMN is another place like that!
5. What is your favorite part of the brain and why?
The prefrontal cortex. It is what makes us uniquely human. PFC is, in theory, able to control and change the processing of almost every other part of the brain. If we understood it, we might be able to control almost any brain circuit.
6. Any exciting news or breakthroughs you'd like to share regarding your neuromodulation work?
After years of being in mostly basic science and technology development mode, we are moving back into the clinical trials space. We are currently running a trial in severe depression in partnership with Abbott, and if we are able to obtain funding, expect to launch a new closed-loop trial in the next few years targeting cognitive impairment.
