Projects

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Balance control in young children: a synergistic approach combining functional assessment and neuromechanics to unravel balance control mechanisms. University of Antwerp

Ann Hallemans
Movement Antwerp (MOVANT)
Adequate balance control is a prerequisite to achieve postures in early life and more complex gross and fine motor skills later in childhood. Balance deficits are a common problem in children with various pathologies such as cerebral palsy, developmental coordination disorder or sensorineural hearing loss. Because of the potential impact of these balance deficits on motor development, they need to be detected early in childhood. However, balance ...

Head impact biomechanics for protecting the active ageing population KU Leuven

Jos Vander Sloten
Biomechanics Section, Research Group Experimental Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy

In Europe, the incidence of fatal and hospitalized traumatic brain injury (TBI) is 262/100.000/year. Lately, a significant increase in the proportion of elderly patients suffering TBI has been observed. This can be explained by changing demographics, better health status allowing them to remain fully active, but also by the presumed mechanical vulnerability of the ageing brain and surrounding tissues.

While staying active is rightfully ...

Neural decoding for brain-machine interfaces KU Leuven

Tom Theys
Research Group Neurophysiology, Research Group Experimental Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy, Laboratory for Neuro- and Psychophysiology

Brain-computer interfaces provide a communication pathway between the human brain and an external machine, typically a computer. Two major approaches exist: invasive or intracranial and non-invasive brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). In the field of intracranial BMIs, attention has mainly been focused on recordings in the motor system.

The aim of this project is to decode neural activity recorded in different cortical areas e.g. the ...

Modeling of invasive cancer-cell force application mechanisms and setup of cancer-cell transvascular mechanobiology experiments KU Leuven

Hans Van Oosterwyck
Biomechanics Section
Understanding the mechanisms by which cancer cells apply forces to their environment to invade is crucial to classify tumor risk-levels and choice of treatment. Weihs lab have developed an approach to identify invasiveness of cancer cells, i.e. the metastatic risk. Specifically, a subpopulation of metastatic cells will indent a synthetic, impenetrable gel, while benign cells do not. However, the force application mechanisms are unclear and ...

Modeling the role of the cytoskeleton in adipocytes as related to diabesity KU Leuven

Hans Van Oosterwyck
Biomechanics Section
This research is aimed at developing a computational modeling framework to facilitate studies of lipid production and associated morphological and mechanobiological changes in adipocytes in adipose tissue, as related to diabesity. Specifically, we aim to (i) Develop the computational modeling framework to facilitate single-adipocyte studies correlating cytoskeletal arrangement, density and size of intracellular lipid droplets, cell morphology, ...

Investigation on a critical time window for gait training in stroke rehabilitation. University of Antwerp

Steven Truijen
Movement Antwerp (MOVANT)
Animal models have shown that motor training is effective only if initiated early after stroke. This activity-induced recovery pattern temporally matches increased gene expression important for neuronal growth and plasticity in the post-stroke brain. It seems that the brain after damage induces a window of enhanced neuroplasticity during which greatest rehabilitation gains can be achieved. In human stroke care, earlier rehabilitation is ...

Validation of markerless body tracking for real world gait analysis. University of Antwerp

Rudi Penne
Product development, Industrial Vision Lab (InViLab)
Markerless motion tracking became very popular and common since the introduction of the Microsoft Kinect in 2010 in both the gaming community and industry. To use markerless motion tracking in the field of medical rehabilitation, a higher accuracy and reliability is needed. To achieve this goal, we will combine a 2-D skeleton detection algorithm with the data from multiple 3-D cameras. The developed procedure will be validated with the ...

4D Imaging for Mechanobiology KU Leuven

Hans Van Oosterwyck
Biomechanics Section, Centre for Molecular and Vascular Biology, Stem Cell and Developmental Biology, Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology, Skeletal Biology and Engineering Research Center, Soft Matter and Biophysics, Division of Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors (MeBioS)

Mechanical forces are critical in shaping a variety of biological processes, and have an important influence on our ability to maintain normal physiological function; the disregulation of these processes leads to degeneration and disease. The ability to recreate and visualize these phenomena in the laboratory is important to understand the basic mechanisms involved, and to guide our strategies for engineering tissues for regenerative medicine ...

Multiscale modeling of experimental regeneration set-ups in skeletal tissue engineering KU Leuven

Liesbet Geris
Biomechanics Section

The aim of the thesis is to develop a multiscale model of osteochondrogenic differentiation in a bioreactor environment and other experimental set-ups typically used in skeletal tissue engineering. The state of mechanical loading around the human ulna, knee joint and growing skeletal tissue in a bioreactor is to be calculated from computational models using finite element method. Subsequently, a computer model of tissue regeneration in ...