Spinal Rat Rehabilitation Robot

The initial goal of this research is to develop a platform that researchers can use to examine how rats relearn how to walk after a spinal cord injury. Previous devices were attached to treadmills. The novelty of this device is that it is mobile to allow recovery in a relatively unstructured environment. With this type of technology in place the next step is to develop an adaptive algorithm that maximizes the recovery rate of the animal. Research in these two areas can then be generalized and applied to humans with spinal cord injury.