Efrain Guirola is an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh pursuing a B.S in Neuroscience with a minor in German Studies and certificates in West European Studies and Conceptual Foundations of Medicine. He graduated from La Salle La Colina, Caracas, Venezuela, and is currently working on his senior thesis at the Rehab Neural Engineering Lab.
Research Interest Summary
EEG, EMG, phantom limb pain, stroke, TMS, neural plasticity, neurophysiology
Research Interests
Efrain’s goal is to be a neurologist, which requires the understanding of the neuropathophysiology of various disorders. He completed a summer research rotation at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital under the supervision of Javier Santos, MD, Ph.D, where he studied how the enteric nervous system under stress reacts to neuropathies. His goal is to get more familiar with other neurological disorders, such as stroke and phantom limb pain by using his understanding of the literature to interpret the results of the data that he will collect and analyze. These data include evoked electromyography (i.e. motor evoked potential, H-reflex, M-wave) and electroencephalography (somatosensory evoked potentials) responses. He will also receive additional training with neural spike sorting and musculoskeletal kinematic modeling, which will aid him with a broader understanding of neuroscience research and the biomechanics of rehabilitation.