Prajakta Joshi, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering, received the Visiting Researcher Award from the Parkinson’s Foundation.

The objective of this award is to offer graduate students and postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to enhance their existing skill set to advance their Parkinson’s research endeavors. This award includes a stipend of $4,000, which supports scholars during their travel and accommodation as they visit a host laboratory to acquire novel techniques that will bolster their Parkinson’s research initiatives. 

This grant will facilitate Joshi’s research and facilitate her journey to work with Sanjay Pandey at Amrita Hospital, Faridabad. Working with Pandey, Joshi aims to gain expertise conducting intraoperative microelectrode recordings of the subthalamic nucleus in response to external stimuli-like vibration. Neural recordings hold immense potential for identifying aberrant brain processes that underlie intricate disease states. 

This research inquiry holds the promise of uncovering the subthalamic nucleus’s reaction to proprioceptive changes, thereby yielding invaluable insights into the role of compromised sensorimotor integration in Parkinson’s disease.