Ph.D. - Neuroscience
University of California San Francisco - 1998
Michael Kilgard
Margaret Fonde Jonsson Professor
Professor
Interim Executive Director, Texas Biomedical Device Center
Research Interests: Vagus nerve stimulation to enhance plasticity and rehabilitation in stroke, tinnitus, spinal cord injury, neuropathy, and PTSD
Professional Preparation
B.A. - Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of California Berkeley - 1993
University of California Berkeley - 1993
Research Areas
Research Interests
Dr. Kilgard trained in biochemistry and genetics at UC Berkeley and in neuroscience at UC San Francisco. He is the Margaret Fonde Jonnson Professor and leads the Texas Biomedical Device Center. Dr. Kilgard has published more than 130 paper in peer reviewed journals, including Nature, Science, Neuron, and Stroke. Dr. Kilgard holds 25 U.S. patents. His work is supported by DARPA, NINDS, NIDCD, the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Foundation Fund at Communities Foundation of Texas, and Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. His research is focused on understanding the mechanisms that regulate neural plasticity in order to develop clinical tools to treat neurological and psychiatric conditions using precisely targeted synaptic plasticity. Dr. Kilgard’s laboratory uses behavioral training, environmental enrichment, drug therapy, deep brain stimulation and peripheral nerve stimulation methods to enhance neural plasticity. Over the last decade, his lab has developed treatments for spinal cord injury, tinnitus, PTSD, and stroke that employ brief bursts of vagus nerve stimulation paired with sensory stimulation or movement to direct therapeutic plasticity.Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) during rehabilitation was first developed in rats at the University of Texas at Dallas ten years ago and has proven to be effective in after clinical studies involving 148 chronic stroke patients at 15 sites across the U.S and U.K. Based on these rigorous studies, the US FDA approved VNS as the first ever neurotechnology proven to improve stroke recovery.
This technique uses brief bursts of closed-loop VNS to engage pro-plasticity neuromodulatory circuits during rehabilitation exercises. Our preclinical findings demonstrate that VNS paired with rehabilitative training enhances recovery in multiple models of neurological injury, including spinal cord injury, ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, and traumatic brain injury. Recovery is associated with neural plasticity in spared motor networks in the brain and spinal cord.
Now that the synaptic mechanisms responsible for targeted plasticity therapy are well understood, the Texas Biomedical Device Center has shifted its focus to developing the biomedical tools necessary to pair vagus nerve stimulation with computer-assisted rehabilitation of neurological and psychiatric conditions. We have produced a fully implantable VNS device that is fifty times smaller and five times less expensive than earlier VNS devices. We have also developed more than 100 computer-controlled exercises that allow for closed-loop neuromodulation during physical therapy.
After demonstrating that VNS enhances synaptic connections needed to treat PTSD and optimizing the closed-loop delivery methods in rats, we have begun to test the therapy in people with chronic PTSD. Prolonged exposure therapy paired with VNS is delivered in the clinic and at home settings and preliminary results are highly encouraging.
Publications
Appointments
Interim Director, Texas Biomedical Device Center
University of Texas at Dallas [2019–Present]
University of Texas at Dallas [2019–Present]
Margaret Fonde Jonnson Professor
University of Texas at Dallas [2013–Present]
University of Texas at Dallas [2013–Present]
Full Professor
University of Texas at Dallas [2011–2013]
University of Texas at Dallas [2011–2013]
Associate Professor
The University of Texas at Dallas [2004–2011]
The University of Texas at Dallas [2004–2011]
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas at Dallas [1999–2004]
The University of Texas at Dallas [1999–2004]
Post-doctoral Fellow
University of California San Francisco [1998–1999]
University of California San Francisco [1998–1999]
Projects
Presentations
International Spinal Cord Society - Plenary Lecture
Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Spinal Cord InjuryAdditional Information
Awards
- University of Texas Regents Outstanding Teaching Award, 2009
- Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teaching Award, 2008
- Texas Advanced Research Program Award, 2008
- Honorary Member, Golden Key International Honour Society, 2006
- NIDCD Academic Research Enhancement Award, Cortical Plasticity and Processing of Speech Sounds, 2004
- John Merck Scholar Finalist, 2003
- James S. McDonnell Foundation Bridging Brain, Mind, and Behavior Research Award, Brain Plasticity and
- Neuro-Rehabilitation, 2002
- Teaching Award, UTD School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2002
- Cure Autism Now Foundation: Sensory Experience, Behavioral Therapy and Neural Plasticity: Implications for
- Autism Remediation, 2002
- Callier Scholar Award, 2002
- NIDCD Research Grant, Cortical Plasticity and Processing of Complex Stimuli, 1999
- NIDCD National Research Service Award, 1998
- Krevan's Distinguished Dissertation Award, UC San Francisco, 1998
- National Science Foundation Fellowship, 1994
- Outstanding Geneticist of the Year, UC Berkeley, 1993
- National Merit Scholar
- Eagle Scout - BSA
Patents
- System for stimulating brain plasticity. M.P. Kilgard, M.M. Merzenich, United States Patent 6,221,908, 1998.
- Computer-Implemented Methods and Apparatus for Alleviating Abnormal Behaviors. M.P. Kilgard, M.M. Merzenich, S. Bao, United States Patent 7,024,398, 2006.
- Timing Control for Paired Plasticity, M.P. Kilgard, L.C. Cauller, N.D. Engineer, C. McIntyre, W. Rosellini, United States Patents 8,489,185; 9,272,145, 9,339,654, and 9,345,886.
- Methods, Systems, and Devices for Treating Tinnitus with VNS Pairing, United States Patent Application, M.P. Kilgard, N.D. Engineer, Pierce DM, United States Patents 8,666,501; 9,204,998; 9,265,660; 9,265,661; 9,265,662; 9,265,663; and 9,522,085.
- Methods, Systems, and Devices for Pairing Vagus Nerve Stimulation with Motor Therapy in Stroke Patients, M.P. Kilgard, N.D. Engineer, Pierce DM, Rennaker RL, United States Patents 8,700,145; 9,333,355; 9,474,904; 9,504,831; 9,522,272; 9,522,273; 9,522,274; and 9,533,152.
- Systems, Methods And Devices For Paired Plasticity, M.P. Kilgard, L.C. Cauller, N.D. Engineer, C. McIntyre, W. Rosellini, United States Patent 9,089,707, 2015.
- Systems, Methods And Devices For Treating Tinnitus, M.P. Kilgard, L.C. Cauller, N.D. Engineer, C. McIntyre, W. Rosellini, United States Patent 8,934,967, 2015.
- Methods and systems for therapy of multiple sclerosis, MP Kilgard, RL Rennaker, United States Patent 10,029,094, 2018.
- Methods for Enhancing Exposure Therapy Using Vagus Nerve Stimulation, C.M. Rodriguez, M.P. Kilgard, N.D. Engineer, United States Patent 10,213,577, 2019.
- Methods, Systems, and Devices for Treating Tinnitus with VNS Pairing, M.P. Kilgard, N.D. Engineer, Pierce DM. United States Patent Application 20,100,004,705.
- Methods, Systems, and Devices for Treating Tinnitus with VNS Pairing, M.P. Kilgard, N.D. Engineer, Pierce DM, United States Patent Application 13/934893.
- Systems and Methods for Optimizing Targeted Neuroplasticity, United States Patent Application 62/333,982.
Invited Scientific Presentations
2022 – American Spinal Injury Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, "Promoting Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury by Pairing Rehabilitation with Vagus Nerve Stimulation". 2022 – American Society for Neurorehabilitation, St. Louis, Missouri, "Enhancing Recovery from Chronic Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitative Training".2021 – Baylor University Medical Center Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Grand Rounds, Dallas, Texas, “Enhancing Recovery from Chronic Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitative Training”.
2021 – European Society of Swallowing Disorders Congress, “Enhancing Recovery from Chronic Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitative Training”.
2021 – Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, University of Miami, Emerging Neurotechnology Symposium: Neuromodulation for Regaining Lost Function, “Enhancing Recovery from Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation”.
2021 – Texas Health Resources Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Grand Rounds, Fort Worth, Texas, “Enhancing Recovery from Chronic Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitative Training”.
2021 – University of Connecticut, Department of Biomedical Engineering, “Promoting Recovery from Stroke, SCI, and PTSD by Pairing Rehabilitation with Vagus Nerve Stimulation”
2021 – University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Grand Rounds, Dallas, Texas, “Enhancing Recovery from Chronic Stroke and Spinal Cord Injury through Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitative Training”.
2020 – International Spinal Cord Society, Annual Meeting, Wings for Life Lecture on Translational Science, Yokohama, Japan, “Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Chronic Spinal Cord Injury”.
2020 – Baylor University Medical Center Trauma Grand Rounds, Dallas, Texas, “Enhanced Recovery from Trauma using Vagus Nerve Stimulation during Rehabilitation”.
2020 – Wings for Life Scientific Meeting, Salzburg, Austria, “Enhancing Recovery in Spinal Cord Injury Patients with Vagus Nerve Stimulation”.
2019 – University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, “Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Neurological and Psychiatric Disease” – Endowed Discovery Lecture
2019 – NIDA-NIAAA: Frontiers in Addiction Research, Chicago, Illinois, “Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Neurological and Psychiatric Disease”
2019 – Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany, “Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Spinal Cord Injury”
2019 – Heidelberg Orthopaedie, Heidelberg, Germany, “Directing Synaptic Plasticity to Treat Chronic Spinal Cord Injury”.
2019 – Wings for Life Research Foundation, Salzburg, Austria, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Spinal Cord Injury”
2018 - Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Uniformed Services University Of The Health Sciences, Rockville, Maryland, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Sensory, Motor and Cognitive Impairments caused by TBI”
2018 - National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Wadsworth Center, Albany, New York, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2018 - University of Minnesota, Entertainment Software and Neurotherapeutics Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”
2018 - Targeted Neuroplasticity Training Ethics: Training Optimization Through Peripheral Nerve Stimulation, Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, Washington, DC, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”.
2018 - Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”.
2018 - Wings for Life Foundation, Salzburg, Austria, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Spinal Cord Injury”.
2018 - American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dallas, Texas, “Clinical Translation of VNS Therapy for Stroke Patients”.
2018 - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Denver, Colorado. “Accelerating Speech Learning with VNS”.
2018 - Frontiers of BrainHealth, Dallas, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”.
2018 - Spinal Cord Plasticity in Motor Control, National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation, San Diego, California, “Closed-loop vagus nerve stimulation during rehabilitation restores network connectivity and motor control after cervical spinal cord injury”.
2017 - Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, New York, New York, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”.
2017 - Harvard Medical School, Department of Otolaryngology, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”.
2017 - International Conference on Neurology and Neuroimmunology, Dallas, Texas. “Directing Neural Plasticity To Understand And Treat Neurological Disease”.
2017 - University of Texas at Austin, Clinically Applied Rehabilitation Engineering, Austin, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological and Psychiatric Disease”.
2017 - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Basic Neuroscience Seminar Series, Dallas, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”.
2017 - Wings for Life Foundation, Salzburg, Austria, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Spinal Cord Injury”.
2017 - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Dallas, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”.
2016 - University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological Diseases”
2016 - BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting, Bethesda, Maryland, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Disease”
2016 - DARPA Targeted Neuroplasticity Training Kick-Off Meeting, San Diego, California, “Targeted Neuroplasticity Training to Accelerate Complex Skill Learning”
2016 - Neuromodulation: The Science, San Francisco, California, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2016 - DARPA Targeted Neuroplasticity Training Proposer’s Day Meeting, Arlington, Virginia, “Targeted Neuroplasticity: Science and Medical Applications”
2016 - Posit Scientific, San Francisco, California, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Stroke and Other Neurological Diseases”
2016 - Neuromuscular Plasticity Symposium, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2016 - DARPA Demo Day Meeting, Pentagon Courtyard, Arlington, Virginia, “Treating Brain Damage”
2015 - Sensory Motor Performance Program Seminar, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Illinois, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2015 - Neuroscience Seminar, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2015 - DARPA ElectRx Meeting, Park City, Utah, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological and Psychiatric Disease”
2015 - Neural Control of Movement, Charleston, South Carolina, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Stroke and Other Neurological Diseases”
2014 - Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Seminar, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2014 - Neuroscience Research Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Stroke and Other Neurological Disorders”
2014 - National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, Bethesda, Maryland, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2014 - 41st Neural Interfaces Conferences, Dallas, Texas, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2014 - Macro to Micro: The Role of Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity and Neural Hypersynchrony in Disease Symposium, Association for Research in Otolarygology, San Diego, California, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Tinnitus”
2013 - Arnold Starr Lecture, University of California, Irvine, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Auditory Processing Disorders”
2013 - Neuroscience Program Retreat, University of Southern California, Lake Arrowhead, California, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2013 - IEEE Medical Device Symposium, Richardson, Texas, “Targeting Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological Disease”
2013 - Neurology Grand Rounds, University of California, Irvine, “Targeting Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological Disease”
2013 - Auditory Plasticity and Aging Workshop, National Institute for Ageing, Bethesda, Maryland, “Directing Plasticity to Treat Neurological Disease”
2013 - University of North Carolina Neuroscience Center Seminar Series, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, “Directed Neural Plasticity as a Research Tool and a Clinical Therapy”
2013 - Emotional Disorders and Their Neural Correlates, University of Wurzburg, Rödelsee, Germany, “Directed Neural Plasticity as a Research Tool and a Clinical Therapy”
2013 - Neurosurgery Grand Rounds, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, “Directed Neural Plasticity as a Research Tool and a Clinical Therapy”
2012 - American College of Neuropsychopharmacology meeting in Hollywood, Florida, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2012 - Neuroscience Institute seminar series at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2012 - Bridging the Gap Symposium, School of Occupational Therapy, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Treat Neurological Disease”
2012 - Neuroscience Institute seminar series at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2012 - Society for Neuroscience satellite symposium: Rat Models of Autism: New Insights from Novel Tools, New Orleans, “Speech sound processing impairments in FMR1 knockout rats”
2012 - Tinnitus: the art and science of innovation, Tinnitus Research Initiative Meeting, Bruges Belgium, “Optimizing VNS-Directed Neural Plasticity for the Treatment of Chronic Tinnitus”
2012 - University of North Texas Health Science Center Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience seminar series, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2011 - Mahoney Institute for Neurological Sciences seminar series at the University of Pennsylvania, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2011 - Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience seminar series at the University of California at Berkeley, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2011 - Learning to Hear: The Influence of Experience and Training on Auditory Skill Conference at the Hugh Knowles Center of Northwestern University, “Directing Neural Plasticity to Understand and Treat Speech and Hearing Disorders”
2011 - Entertainment Software applied to Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society Meeting, University of California at San Francisco, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2011 - Tinnitus Research Initiative Meeting, Buffalo, New York, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Tinnitus”
2011 - Center for Neuroscience Seminar Series at the University of Pittsburgh, “Directing Cortical Plasticity to Understand and Treat Neurological Disease”
2011 - Winter Conference on the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Park City, Utah, “Cortical map plasticity improves learning but is not necessary for improved performance”
2010 – Crystal Charity Ball Autism Project, Dallas, Texas, “Speech Sound Processing in Autism”
2010 – University of Texas at Arlington Seminar in Bioengineering, Arlington, Texas, “New Tools to Rewire the Human Brain and Treat Neurological Disease”
2010 - Tinnitus Research Initiative Meeting, Dallas, Texas, “Reversing Pathological Neural Plasticity to Treat Tinnitus”
2009 - NIDCD Workshop: Brain Stimulation for Treatment of Tinnitus, Bethesda, Maryland, “Using vagus nerve stimulation to direct plasticity for the treatment of tinnitus”.
2009 - International Conference on Auditory Cortex, Magdeburg, Germany, “Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System: From Tones to Speech”.
2009 - University of California at San Francisco Neuroscience Seminar, “Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System: From Tones to Speech”.
2009 - University of Michigan, Biology and Experience as Mediators of Neurodevelopmental Health Seminar Series, “Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”.
2009 - University of California at Los Angeles Neuroscience Seminar, “Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System: From Tones to Speech”.
2008 - Advances and Perspectives in Auditory Neurophysiology, Washington D.C., “Speech Sound Categorization and Plasticity in the Central Auditory System”.
2008 - University of Texas at Austin Neurobiology Seminar, Austin, Texas, “Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System: From Tones to Speech”.
2008 - Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii, “Neural Plasticity in Animal Models”.
2008 - Healthy Minds Conference, Sarasota, Florida, “Neural Processing of Speech Sounds”.
2008 - Linking Auditory Neurophysiology to Perception Workshop, Computational and Systems Neuroscience, Snow Bird, Utah, “Cortical Activity Patterns Predict Speech Discrimination Ability”.
2008 - Real-Time Processing and the Processing of Time Workshop, Computational and Systems Neuroscience, Snow Bird, Utah, “Effect of Neural Correlations on Speech Discrimination”.
2007 - University of Texas at Houston Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Houston, Texas, “Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System: From Tones to Speech”
2007 - Advances and Perspectives in Auditory Neurophysiology, San Diego, California, “Activity Patterns in Awake Auditory Cortex Predict Speech Discrimination Ability in Rats”
2007 - International Dyslexia Association Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas, “How Practice Changes the Brain’s Response to Speech Sounds”
2007 - Behavioral Neuroscience Seminar, University of Connecticut. “Coding and Plasticity in Auditory Cortex: From Tones to Speech”
2006 - International Conference on the Auditory Cortex: The Listening Brain, Grantham, England. “Speech Processing and Plasticity”
2005 - Summer Institute In Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, “Cortical Plasticity: from Tones to Speech”
2005 - UCSF Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, California, “Cortical Plasticity: from Tones to Speech”
2005 - Center for BrainHealth Symposia Reprogramming the Human Brain, Dallas, Texas, “Translating Plasticity Research into Clinical Practice”
2005 - Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, “Perceptual Learning and Cortical Self-organization”
2004 - Federation for European Neuroscience conference- “Plasticity in Central Auditory Processing: From Neural Mechanisms to Behavioral Significance”, Lisbon, Portugal, “Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”.
2004 - 21st Century Science Initiative, Palisades, New York, “Experience-Dependent Cortical Plasticity”
2003 - Neural Representation and Processing of Temporal Patterns, Banbury Conference, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, “Sensory Experience and Temporal Plasticity”
2003 - International Conference on Auditory Cortex: towards a synthesis of human and animal research, Magdeburg, Germany, “Auditory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”
2003 - McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences, Heron Island, Australia, “Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”
2003 - Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Daytona Beach, Florida, “Perceptual learning and cortical self-organization”
2003 - American Academy of Audiology, San Antonio, Texas, Perceptual Learning & Plasticity Preconference (Co-presenter Beverly Wright, Northwestern University)
2003 - 21st Century Science Initiative, Tarrytown, New York, “Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”
2003 - UTD/UTSW Reprogramming the Human Brain Symposium, Dallas, Texas, “Targeted Manipulation of Neural Plasticity”
2002 - University of Pennsylvania Johnson Foundation for Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Department of Neuroscience, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, “Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity”
2001 - UT Southwestern Department of Psychiatry and Center for Basic Neuroscience Seminar Series, Dallas, Texas, “How Experience Shapes Brain Function”
2001 - Auditory Function and Dysfunction:Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms, Auckland, New Zealand, "Sensory Experience and Cortical Plasticity"
2001 - American Association for the Advancement of Science, San Francisco, "How Experience Rewires the Brain"
2000 - Summer Brain Institute, Doubletreee Hotel Dallas, "How is the Brain like a Child? - a Neuroscience Perspective on Learning"
2000 - NICE2000: Neural Plasticity and Learning, Grindelwald, Switzerland, “Toward a General Theory of Cortical Plasticity”
1998 - Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel, "Stimulation of the Nucleus Basalis Enables Plasticity of Spatial and Temporal Representations in Primary Auditory Cortex"
1998 - Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany, " Stimulation of the Nucleus Basalis Enables Plasticity of Spatial and Temporal Representations in Primary Auditory Cortex"
1998 - Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, " Stimulation of the Nucleus Basalis Enables Plasticity of Spatial and Temporal Representations in Primary Auditory Cortex"
1997 - Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, "Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Stimulation Guides Large-Scale Reorganization of Adult Primary Auditory Cortex"
News Articles
Neuroscientist is Devoted to Building Strong Minds
UT Dallas neuroscientist Dr. Michael Kilgard understands the science behind teaching. “Neuroscience research demonstrates beyond any doubt that the brain is malleable and can benefit greatly from focused interventions,” he said. “The important thing for educators to remember is that teachers change brains every day.” During his 10 years at UT Dallas, Kilgard’s teaching style has not only captured the attention of his students but also caught the attention of colleagues and the UT System Board of Regents. Kilgard is one of only 38 faculty members across the nine UT System academic institutions to be named a recipient of the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award for tenured faculty. The award is accompanied by at $30,000 stipend.
NIH Grant to Aid Autism Language Investigation
A UT Dallas neuroscientist has earned a $1.6 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how autistic children process language and why they experience communication difficulties. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders awarded the grant to Dr. Michael Kilgard, associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. The funds will enable his lab to evaluate therapies aimed at counteracting the speech- and sound-related deficits that often limit the ability of autistic people to learn and live independently. “We hope this round of research helps us learn more about what happens in autism,” Kilgard said. “Ultimately, we hope to provide some benefits to relieve the difficult challenges faced by people with autism, as well as their families and others who care for them.”
Study: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Boosts Post-Stroke Motor Skill Recovery
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have demonstrated a method to accelerate motor skill recovery after a stroke by helping the brain reorganize itself more quickly.In a preclinical study, the scientists paired vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with a physical therapy task aimed at improving the function of an upper limb in rodents. The results showed a doubled long-term recovery rate relative to current therapy methods, not only in the targeted task but also in similar muscle movements that were not specifically rehabbed. Their work was recently published in the journal Stroke.
Clinical Trial Brings Positive Results for Tinnitus Sufferers
UT Dallas researchers have demonstrated that treating tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, using vagus nerve stimulation-tone therapy is safe and brought significant improvement to some of the participants in a small clinical trial.Drs. Sven Vanneste and Michael Kilgard of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences used a new method pairing vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with auditory tones to alleviate the symptoms of chronic tinnitus. Their results were published on Nov. 20 in the journal Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface.
VNS is an FDA-approved method for treating various illnesses, including depression and epilepsy. It involves sending a mild electric pulse through the vagus nerve, which relays information about the state of the body to the brain.
Grant Enables Researchers to Continue Studying Stroke Recovery
At UT Dallas, researchers are developing new techniques to aid recovery from stroke. Their efforts recently received a boost thanks to a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health.Drs. Michael Kilgard and Robert Rennaker will receive $2.3 million over the next five years to test the effectiveness of using vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) to enhance recovery from stroke in an older population.