Daniel Merfeld

About

Biography

My research projects include:

Towards healthy aging: Quantifying vestibular contributors to age-related changes in balance and fall risk

Falls (i) are common, (ii) directly injure or kill many Americans each year, and (iii) increase exponentially as we age. While many factors contribute to falls, we focus on vestibular degradation because new data show that agerelated increases in vestibular thresholds mediate (“explain”) nearly half of age-related balance declines; related findings have led to estimates that up to 150,000 Americans might die each year due to sub-optimal vestibular function, including sub-clinical age-related vestibular declines. As crucial steps to reduce age-related falls, we propose extensive human testing designed to develop: (a) targeted vestibular screening tests by quantifying impacts of vestibular declines on age-related balance declines and falls and (b) a potential intervention designed to improve vestibular precision, which could also improve balance and reduce falls.

Evaluating a Portable Virtual-Reality (VR) Balance Test as a Vestibular Assessment Screen

For both veteran and civilian populations, falls (i) are common, (ii) directly injure or kill many Americans each year, and (iii) are a leading cause of accidental death. While many factors contribute to falls, we focus on vestibular degradation because new data show that higher vestibular thresholds are correlated with failure to complete the vestibular condition of a common quiet-stance balance test, which, in turn, correlates with over a 6-fold increase in self-reported falls. Taken together, these findings have led to estimates that 50,000 Americans might die following falls each year due to sub-optimal vestibular function, including age-related vestibular declines. As a crucial step toward predicting falls related to declines in vestibular function, we propose extensive human testing to directly quantify the correlations between (a) balance, (b) vestibular function, and (c) age using: (1) portable virtual reality balance testing; and (2) vestibular threshold testing.

Identifying Adverse Modes via Human-Machine Cybernetic Modeling

The goal of this project is to both understand and quantify all of the following basic science elementary subcomponents of a human cybernetic system:

• Dynamic multi-sensory Spatial Orientation
• Multi-input multi-output Motor Control
• Impacts of Brain Oxygenation (including vestibular oxygenation)
• Visual-Vestibular Autonomic influences
• Comprehensive closed-loop Modeling
• Couplings & Adverse Mode signatures

In addition, we aim to combine these subcomponents into a novel comprehensive model of a cybernetic system that will generalize to machines beyond manned aircraft.

Moving MRI: Imaging a Moving Body with a Moving MRI Magnet

The goal of this research is to develop a new technology for imaging the brain while the subject’s body is in motion. Moving Magnetic Resonance Imaging (mMRI) will enable imaging of the neural activity in the brain while the subject’s body is in motion and will reveal how the brain controls bodily motion, senses while in motion (active vision, vestibular function, etc.), maintains balance, and maintains homeostasis (e.g., cardiovascular regulation) during motion. The technology will likely lead to an improved understanding of brain disorders that are revealed only while the head and/or body are in motion, and will likely shed light on how the brain suffers and recovers from traumatic brain injury.

Credentials

Research