Florida Poly professor will use federal grant for research on Parkinson's disease

An assistant professor at Florida Polytechnic University has received a $200,000 National Science Foundation Grant for research on Parkinson’s disease.

Chris Kelley, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received the grant to analyze the movement dysfunction the disease causes. Kelley is exploring control theory, which analyzes how to influence a system’s behavior to achieve a goal and improve the accuracy, reliability and stability of the system, Florida Polytechnic said in a news release.

Kelley said Parkinson’s patients have two main sets of symptoms: tremor and movement inhibition or slowness of movement.

“We’re trying to capture whether both sets of symptoms are coming from the same overall source of dysfunction with a goal of improving the understanding of what’s going wrong and being able to apply that to improve diagnosis and treatment,” he said.

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Kelley’s research will use modeling and simulation as well as robotic-based movement studies. He said previous research has shown that different parts of the brain play certain roles that relate to those of a robotics control system, such as the basal ganglia being involved in how fast a person should move and which tasks should be executed.

The results of this two-year research effort could be applied to future Parkinson’s disease diagnosis methods, treatments and rehabilitation plans, the release said.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida Poly professor gets federal grant for Parkinson's research