Advanced Platform Technology Center

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Paul D. Marasco, Ph.D.
Investigator 

Dr Marasco earned his Neuroscience PhD from the Vanderbilt Brain Institute of Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee. There he underwent formal interdisciplinary training in molecular neuroscience and developmental molecular genetics. His independent graduate work focused on studying the sensory neural system of the mole in the laboratory of Dr Kenneth Catania. This research involved a collaborative systems-level approach to explore the neuro-mechanical function of the Eimer’s Organ, a specialized touch structure arrayed on the nose of the mole. This work combined electrophysiology with novel molecular tracer methods, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy to provide insight into sensory neural function.

Dr Marasco’s post-doctoral work moved to a clinical translational focus when he joined Dr Todd Kuiken’s Center for Bionic Medicine [ CBM ] (Formerly the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs [ NECAL ]) at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. At CBM/NECAL Dr Marasco studied physiologically relevant sensory integration with prosthetic devices. Targeted reinnervation is a new neural-machine interface that was developed by Dr Todd Kuiken to help improve the function of advanced prosthetic limbs. Targeted reinnervation is a procedure where the nerves that once innervated a severed limb are surgically redirected to proximal muscle and skin sites. The motor nerves reinnervate the new muscles and the resulting signals from the contractions are used to direct the movement of multifunction computerized artificial limbs. The redirected sensory nerves reinnervate the new skin and create a sensory expression of the missing limb in the amputee’s reinnervated skin. When these amputees are touched on this reinnervated skin they feel as though they are being touched on their missing limb. Dr Marasco investigated this sensory phenomenon using both human and animal model approaches utilizing Targeted Reinnervation. These investigations included a diverse array of experimental tools such as psychophysics, perceptual mapping, cortical and peripheral neural recording.

Dr Marasco’s broad-based sensory neuroscience research continues as a principal investigator in the Advanced Platform Technology Center of Excellence at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Here he has honed his translational approach using animal models to answer basic science questions and then using them to inform clinical approaches while conversely utilizing human research subjects to provide scientific insight into how the brain functions. Dr Marasco is currently involved with studies to understand kinesthesia. His work is focused on understanding the mechanistic aspects and brain organizational properties of this poorly understood sense. His express goal is to develop a deeper systems-level understanding of the kinesthetic sense so that methodologies can be established to provide prosthetic limbs with a physiologically relevant sense of limb position. Dr Marasco is also involved in work with Dr Dustin Tyler of the Functional Neural Interfaces Laboratory ( FNI-Lab ) at Case Western Reserve University to develop a direct neural stimulation system for sensory feedback in human amputees.

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Zachary Thumser
Research Engineer

Zachary earned his MS in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2003. While there, his graduate work focused on bioelectronics.

In 2005 he joined Dr. John Stahl's lab at the Cleveland VA Medical Center's Ocular Motility Labratory as a research engineer. He studied eye-head coordination and saccade generation propensities in humans, and how they can be modified as a way to understand the underlying architecture of gaze control. In 2009 his work shifted to eye movement and neuron recordings in mice, studying the effect of aminopyridines on eye movements and cerebellar dysfunction in mice with cacna1a calcium channelopathies. Both human and mouse labs also included some work with downbeat nystagmus.

In 2013 he joined Dr. Marasco as a research engineer studying sensory integration with prosthetic limbs.

Publications

Rock Lim
Research Technician

Rock graduated with a BS from Utah State University in cognitive psychology in 2013.  During that time his research focus was on the relationship between saccadic eye movements, visual fixation, and the drain on cognitive resources caused by different visual stimuli.  While there he also conducted a study on potential enculturation effects on number estimation ability in women utilizing a number line task in conjunction with fNIRS scans on neural activity. 

 In August of 2013 he joined Dr. Marasco’s lab doing research on sensory integration with prosthetic limbs from a psychophysical perspective. 

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