Meet the Experts:

Learn what a researcher at the forefront of TBI research has to say about the current state and future of the field.

September 2022

In honour of the late Dr. Poulsen, who was an incredible researcher, collaborator and friend to all of us at emka.

Dr. Poulsen worked in the Neurosurgery Department, in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo. His research focus was the post-traumatic epilepsy and potential induced seizures. His lab was looking at the progression of seizure onset in relation to identifying blood biomarkers.

Dr. Poulsen kindly shared his thoughts about his impactful research with us during an interview in 2020.

What does the general landscape of TBI research area currently look like?

Traumatic Brain Injury research is currently on the rise.

What are the real-world implications of your research?

We are focusing on identifying biomarkers of injury severity and seizure susceptibility, to help in the clinic for early treatment options for patients.

Which physiological parameters are you monitoring during your studies ?

EEG, activity, and video are recorded with rodentPACK, a wireless telemetry system from emka TECHNOLOGIES.

We are also looking at:

Biomarkers and functional deficits through regular blood collection and motor skills assessments.
RNAseq, miRNA, and tRNA fragments to correlate with injury.

How has using emka TECHNOLOGIES equipment helped with improving the translatability and reproducibility of your research?

The addition of synchronized video with EEG and seizure detection modules has allowed to do large scale data collection and to identify early parameters in animals that are more likely to develop post-traumatic epilepsy.

The combination of EEG, acceleration, and video is a huge upside to the emka system.

The analysis software’s flexibility with the seizure detection module has been extremely valuable to these findings. This has allowed us to do large scale data collection that has allowed us to identify potential early parameters on who will develop early seizure.

How long have you been an emka TECHNOLOGIES user?

Over 10 years. We particularly appreciate the very responsive, flexible, and accommodating customer service.

Dr Poulsen has been involved in a JoVE publication showcasing the importance of wireless technology in TBI research. The publication and video present a protocol to induce severe TBI with the lateral fluid percussion injury (FPI) model in adult, male Wistar rats.

McGuire, M. J., Gertz, S. M., McCutcheon, J. D., Richardson, C. R., Poulsen, D. J. Use of a Wireless Video-EEG System to Monitor Epileptiform Discharges Following Lateral Fluid-Percussion Induced Traumatic Brain Injury. J. Vis. Exp. (148), e59637, doi:10.3791/59637 (2019).

If you have any questions about the use of wireless telemetry for TBI research, please contact us!