Dawn Taylor Laboratory

Research

Taylor lab research areas

My lab focuses on restoring motor function after injury or disease and on developing research tools to understand and heal the nervous system.

One major research thrust is on using technology to bypass damaged neurons and to restore movements by thought after paralysis. Specifically, my lab is refining methods to record neural activity from the brain, decode one’s desired arm movement from that recorded neural activity, and then stimulate the muscles in a manner that will generate the desired movement in real time. We use both invasive and non-invasive brain recording methods, and our muscle stimulation algorithms are designed to be easily customizable to each person’s unique post-injury limb.  We are now also starting to integrate restoration of proprioception into these system my adding intracortical microstimulation of brain areas that process the sensation of muscle force.

Another research thrust is focused on understanding network dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease and how neural stimulation can be used to renormalize sensorimotor processing. We are trying to understand mechanisms by which deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus serves to improve function of the motion-producing brain networks and how to apply the stimulation more effectively to optimally improve symptoms while minimizing side effects. We are also looking into using sensory stimulation in the periphery to potentially improve Parkinson's disease symptoms without needing surgery.

Since high quality neural recordings are key to my research, I am also working to improve electrode technology and develop better neural signal processing tools that can get much more useful and reliable information from the recorded brain signals compared to current methods. 

I also have interests in how the gut and brain signal each other and how the food we eat and the microbes in our gut impact out brain's function and health. I look forward to expanding my work into that area in the future.

Selected Publications

View publications for Dawn Taylor, PhD
(Disclaimer: This search is powered by PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed is a third-party website with no affiliation with Cleveland Clinic.)

Johnson T, Taylor D (2021) Improving reaching with functional electrical stimulation by incorporating stiffness modulation. J Neural Eng. 18(5):10.1088/1741-2552; PMID: 34644693; PMCID: PMC8627866

Kim Y, Ereifej ES, Schwartzman WE, Meade SM, Chen K, Rayyan J, Feng H, Aluri V, Mueller NN, Bhambra R, Bhambra S, Taylor DM, Capadona JR. (2021)  Investigation of the Feasibility of Ventricular Delivery of Resveratrol to the Microelectrode Tissue Interface. Micromachines (Basel). 12(12):1446. PMID: 34945296; PMCID: PMC8708660

Loper H, Leinen M, Bassoff L, Sample J, Romero-Ortega M, Gustafson KJ, Taylor DM, Schiefer MA.  (2021) Both high fat and high carbohydrate diets impair vagus nerve signaling of satiety. Sci Rep. 11(1):10394; PMID: 34001925; PMCID: PMC812917

Hermann JK, Ravikumar M, Shoffstall AJ, Ereifej ES, Kovach KM, Chang J, Soffer A, Wong C, Srivastava V, Smith P, Protasiewicz G, Jiang J, Selkirk SM, Miller RH, Sidik S, Ziats NP, Taylor DM, Capadona JR. (2018) Inhibition of the cluster of differentiation 14 innate immunity pathway with IAXO-101 improves chronic microelectrode performance. J Neural Eng. 15(2):025002. PMID: 29219114; PMCID: PMC5818286

Bedell HW, Hermann JK, Ravikumar M, Lin S, Rein A, Li X, Molinich E, Smith PD, Selkirk SM, Miller RH, Sidik S, Taylor DM, Capadona JR. (2018) Targeting CD14 on blood derived cells improves intracortical microelectrode performance. Biomaterials 163:163-173. PMID: 29471127; PMCID: PMC5841759

Jiang J, Marathe AR, Keene JC, Taylor DM. (2017) A testbed for optimizing electrodes embedded in the skull or in artificial skull replacement pieces used after injury. J Neurosci Methods 277:21-29. PMID: 27979758; PMCID: PMC5253247

Marathe AR, Taylor DM. (2015) The impact of command signal power distribution, processing delays, and speed scaling on neurally-controlled devices. J Neural Eng. 12(4):046031. PMID: 26170261; PMCID: PMC4547796

Foldes ST, Taylor DM. (2013) Speaking and cognitive distractions during EEG-based brain control of a virtual neuroprosthesis-arm. J Neuroeng Rehabil. 10:116. PMID: 24359452; PMCID: PMC3878059

Vadera S, Marathe AR, Gonzalez-Martinez J, Taylor DM. (2013) Stereoelectroencephalography for continuous two-dimensional cursor control in a brain-machine interface. Neurosurg Focus 34(6):E3. PMID: 23724837

Marathe AR, Taylor DM. (2013) Decoding continuous limb movements from high-density epidural electrode arrays using custom spatial filters. J Neural Eng. 10(3):036015. PMID: 23611833; PMCID: PMC3746986

Shoffstall AJ, Taylor DM, Lavik EB. (2012) Engineering therapies in the CNS: what works and what can be translated. Neurosci Lett. 519(2):147-54. PMID: 22330751; PMCID: PMC3377833

Foldes ST, Taylor DM. (2011) Offline comparison of spatial filters for two-dimensional movement control with noninvasive field potentials. J Neural Eng. 8(4):046022. PMID: 21712569

Muralidharan A, Chae J, Taylor DM. (2011) Early detection of hand movements from electroencephalograms for stroke therapy applications. J Neural Eng. 8(4):046003. PMID: 21623009; PMCID: PMC3148608

Chadwick EK, Blana D, Simeral JD, Lambrecht J, Kim SP, Cornwell AS, Taylor DM, Hochberg LR, Donoghue JP, Kirsch RF. (2011) Continuous neuronal ensemble control of simulated arm reaching by a human with tetraplegia. J Neural Eng. 8(3):034003. PMID: 21543840; PMCID: PMC3608269

Muralidharan A, Chae J, Taylor DM. (2011) Extracting Attempted Hand Movements from EEGs in People with Complete Hand Paralysis Following Stroke. Front Neurosci. 5:39. PMID: 21472032; PMCID: PMC3066795

Marathe AR, Taylor DM. (2011) Decoding position, velocity, or goal: does it matter for brain-machine interfaces? J Neural Eng. 8(2):025016. PMID: 21436529; PMCID: PMC3140465