The following research activities are ongoing in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University. Many of these projects involve collaborations with faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Zablocki VA Medical Center.

REHABILITATION
IMAGING
MODELING and COMPUTATION
MEDICAL DEVICES
NEUROSYSTEMS
We have rapidly emerged as one the strongest programs in Rehabilitative Bioengineering...
- Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Engineering
Administered through the Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Engineering Center (OREC), research opportunities exist in motion analysis, orthopaedic biomaterials and rehabilitation engineering...
- Human Motion Analysis
The human motion analysis laboratory is clinically structured to evaluate adult, foot and ankle, pediatric, sports medicine and total joint patients during ambulation...
- Neurorehabilitation
The Neurorehabilitation Center serves research and development activities in neurorehabilitation, investigating optimal intervention strategies for movement therapy. Target populations are stroke and spinal cord injury, and to a lesser extent cerebral palsy and autism...
Neuromotor Control
Research is focused on characterizing how able-bodied persons and those suffering neuromotor impairment use sensory feedback to adapt movements in response to changes in operating conditions...
Neuromechanics following Spinal Chord Injury
Research aims to examine the interface between the human nervous system and the environment based on mechanical measurements of the control of movement...
Interrelationship of the Autonomic and Motor Systems in Spinal Cord Injury
This project examines how changes in autonomic regulation correspond to changes in motor function...
Changes in Cortical Reorganization in the Stroke Arm
Research focus is to examine whether Botox treatments of the arm produce plastic changes in the brain, particularly when the treatments are applied early post-stroke...
- Telerehabilitation and Performance Assessment
Research is devoted to developing and putting into clinical practice a range of telehealth technologies and modes for wireline and wireless telecommunications...
TheraJoy Technology
This project involves both rehabilitation robots and mass-market input devices...
UniTherapy
Telerehabilitation for neurorehabilitation applications...
TheraDrive technology
To create a low-cost, commercially-viable, home-based rehabilitation system...
Intelligent Telerehab Assistants for Neurorehab MedPredict
An event-driven dynamic recurrent neurofuzzy framework has been developed to predict prognosis in neurorehabilitation...
- Rehabilitation Robotics
ADL-specific Training for Upper Extremity Functional Recovery after Stroke
The application of robots in the rehabilitation of the upper extremity as therapy...
- Prosthetics
A rate controlled indentor with Laser Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) system was developed to apply load to the soft tissues of the lower extremity...
The field of prosthetics is growing ever more complicated as new components are being developed, including microprocessor controlled limbs and knee joints with stance and swing phase controls...
Those who experience lower extremity weakness or paralysis following a stroke often exhibit gait deviations frequently caused by the inability to completely lift their foot upon swing through during gait...
Patient-specific Design of Orthopaedic Implants with Engineered Internal Porosity
The development of solid freeform fabrication (SFF) technology, particularly with regard to biocompatible metallic materials, now allows the fabrication of implant geometries that would have been impossible as few as 3 years ago...
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2. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Neuroimaging
Faculty at MU and MCW are engaged in research related to functional imaging of organ physiology. Functional imaging is an interdisciplinary activity that allows scientists, engineers and physicians to simultaneously quantifying the structural and functional aspects of a biological system...
fMRI and Visual Field Mapping
Research focuses on using fMRI and signal and image processing to understand processing of visual function in the visual cortex...
fMRI, EEG and Auditory and Speech Function
Research focuses on the neurophysiological basis of phonetic and auditory perception in humans...
Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Spinal Cord Pathology
The purpose of this project is to develop techniques for imaging the spinal cord in order to determine which connections have been lost and which are intact after spinal cord injury...
Tools for use in fMRI studies of sensory-motor performance
Assess sensory-motor learning and performance in populations such as stroke and spinal chord injury...
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3. Physiology and Functional Imaging of the Lung
Studies are designed to determine the nature of the damage to pulmonary circulation in terms of the nervous and chemical control of the pulmonary vascular muscle...
The Keck Center for Microfocal Angiography possesses unique capabilities for x-ray microfocal imaging research...
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4. Medical Imaging Systems
The Medical Imaging Systems Laboratory focuses on the design and optimization of medical imaging technologies. Systems-level research is performed using computer simulation methods and experiments in collaboration with radiologists, physicists, and engineers at the Zablocki VA Medical Center, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital.
Investigating dose reduction, scatter reduction, and energy-weighting techniques for CT
Designing a dynamic multi-pinhole micro-SPECT system
Investigating a dedicated breast CT system with an inverse geometry
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5. Cardiovascular Physiology and Computational Fluid Dynamics
Faculty in the biomedical engineering department are using functional imaging, mathematical modeling and instrumentation design to develop implantable devices, such as stents, to treat cardiovascular disease in both pediatric and adult populations...
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6. Biotelemetry & Implantable Electronic Devices
In conjunction with industry sponsors, research focuses on the design and prototype development of several implantable and external biomedical devices...
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7. Neurosystems
This research integrates human psychophysics, functional imaging and biologically constrained modeling to investigate the neural representation of visual information for perception and action in the human brain...
Neural Engineering
System Identification of Sensory Motor Control
Perceptual Learning
Processing Sensory Motor Error
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