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2010 IBMISPS - Pioneer in Medicine Award Recipient - Jonathan Wolpaw, MD
Chief, Laboratory of Neural Injury and Repair
Wadsworth Center
New York State Department of Health and
State University of New York, Albany, New York
Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, a board-certified neurologist, is Chief of the Laboratory of Neural Injury and Repair at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health in Albany, New York. His pioneering work in two distinct areas of biomedical research has been widely recognized as breaking important new ground and is leading directly to the rehabilitation and enhancement of the quality of life of people with severe disabilities.
Dr. Wolpaw has led development of EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to restore communication and control to people who are paralyzed. Over the past 20 years, his group has shown that non-invasive EEG-based BCI technology can, without need for surgery, give control and communication capability similar to that achieved by electrodes placed in the brain; his laboratory has recently begun to provide BCI systems to severely disabled people for daily use in their homes. His group’s innovative BCI software platform BCI2000 has been provided free of charge to over 500 research groups worldwide and is now the most widely used BCI software platform in the world. Dr. Wolpaw has also led the formation of the non-profit Brain Communication Foundation (www.braincommunication.org) which is intended to support the wider dissemination of BCI technology to severely disabled people throughout the world. Dr. Wolpaw’s achievements in BCI research and development have received wide recognition and have garnered numerous national and international awards.
A longer history of Dr. Wolpaw’s work lies in the field of operant conditioning of spinal reflexes, which he has used to define the complex patterns of plasticity underlying vertebrate learning and memory. Over the past 30 years, this unique work has demonstrated that reflex conditioning changes the spinal cord and it has begun to reveal the complex mechanisms of change at the neuronal and synaptic levels. Ongoing studies are currently showing that spinal-cord reflex conditioning can guide spinal cord plasticity to improve walking after spinal cord injuries. This method offers a completely new approach to rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries.
Dr. Wolpaw received his undergraduate education at Amherst College, his M.D. degree at Case Western Reserve University, and his clinical training in internal medicine and neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Cleveland and the University of Vermont. He trained in basic and clinical neurophysiological research at the National Institutes of Health, and was elected to the American Neurological Association in 1987. In addition to his position as lab chief at the Wadsworth Center, Dr. Wolpaw is Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the State University of New York at Albany, and is also on the faculties of Albany Medical College and Ohio State University.