Translational neurosurgery for movement, epilepsy, pain, and stroke recovery.
Computational, engineering, and statistical methods applied to intraoperative neurophysiology — to inform surgical planning, neuromodulation, and brain computer interface design.
Patients: request an appointment — 800-789-7366
A translational research lab in functional and stereotactic neurosurgery.
The RESToRe Lab uses computational, engineering, and statistical methods to analyze electrophysiological data — assisting with surgical planning, developing novel neurologic targets for neuromodulation, and understanding the neural control of movement to restore function after neurologic injury — across movement disorders, epilepsy, pain, and stroke.
I'm a patient or family member.
Plain-language guides to the conditions we treat — movement disorders, epilepsy, pain, and stroke recovery — with how to be referred and what to expect at your first visit.
Patient information →I'm a researcher, clinician, or student.
The lab's research program — four clinical areas (movement, epilepsy, pain, stroke recovery) and two cross-cutting methods (brain computer interfaces, computational tools) — with publications, software, and open positions.
Research areas →Four clinical areas, two shared methods, one translational program.
The four clinical areas are the conditions we treat and study. The two methods run underneath all four — the same recordings and the same analysis tools, applied to different diseases.
Movement disorders
Intraoperative neurophysiology during awake DBS for Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. Imaging-guided directional DBS, focused ultrasound for tremor, and early work on cerebellar DBS for cerebral palsy.
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Epilepsy
Stereo-EEG recordings to characterize seizure onset zones, including thalamic SEEG and quantitative biomarkers such as neural fragility. Long-term outcomes of laser interstitial thermal therapy for mesial temporal epilepsy.
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Pain & neuromodulation
Surgical management of refractory pain and applications of closed-loop neuromodulation.
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Stroke recovery
Paired vagus nerve stimulation with intensive rehabilitation for chronic arm and hand weakness after ischemic stroke. FDA-approved in 2021 and offered at Penn as clinical care, in a joint evaluation with stroke neurology and rehabilitation medicine.
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Brain computer interfaces
High-density cortical and spinal recording during clinically planned surgery, and implantable BCIs aimed at restoring hand grasp after spinal cord injury.
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Computational methods
Open-source tools the rest of the lab runs on — Thalamus for real-time closed-loop data capture, nSTAT for point-process and time-series analysis of neural data.
Research →What's new in the lab.
The most recent confirmed activity. Filterable feed at news.
The multicenter trial of cuneiform-nucleus DBS for freezing of gait will begin enrolling soon.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation–funded phase 1/2 trial of sensing-enabled cuneiform-nucleus deep brain stimulation for levodopa-resistant freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease will enroll 18 participants …
Read on the Trials page →Pedro Borges, Roshan Warman, and Iahn Cajigas presented four talks at CNS 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Postdoctoral fellow Pedro Borges presented "First-in-Human Characterization Of Gait-Aligned Electrophysiological Signatures In The Cuneiform Nucleus Using Bidirectional Deep Brain Stimulation Sensing," and Penn medical …
Read on CNS →Book chapter on brain–computer interfaces for children published in Pediatric Deep Brain Stimulation.
Shikha Singh (first author), Isaac Pomeraniec, Dr. Liming Qiu, and Dr. Iahn Cajigas review how brain–computer interfaces, which turn brain signals into commands for a computer or a device, have been used to help …
Read on ScienceDirect →NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01) · NIH K12 Neurosurgeon Research Career Development Program · Michael J. Fox Foundation · Vazirani Fund for Spinal Cord Research.
Primary collaborators include Dr. Bijan Pesaran (Brain Machine Interface Systems Lab), Dr. Michael Beauchamp (Beauchamp Lab — multisensory integration and visual perception), and Dr. Casey Halpern (Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, Halpern Lab).