Dr. Dobkin is Professor of Neurology and the Co-PI for the UCLA NEXT site. I developed and directed the first UCLA Stroke Program and then the first Neurologic Rehabilitation and Research Program, which includes an inpatient and outpatient service and, for the past 10 years, a neural repair component. I have been funded by foundations and the NIH over this time for studies of motor control, functional imaging, clinical trials, and as PI of a T32 award for 10 years for postdoctoral research training. I participated in the NINDS Pilot Stroke Data Bank, the first EC/IC Bypass trial, the ticlopidine trials for TIA and secondary stroke prevention, hemodilution and other acute stroke trials. I began studies of body weight-supported treadmill training in 1990, which led to designing the NIH-funded multicenter Spinal Cord Injury Locomotor Trial (Neurology, 2006) and the Locomotor Experience Applied Post-Stroke trial (New Engl J Med, 2011) and studies of feedback to improve walking outcomes (SIRROWS, Neurorehabil Neural Repair 2010; SIRRACT, in progress). I have contributed to the design and served on safety committees of the EXCITE trial of constraint-induced movement therapy (JAMA, 2007), the VA upper extremity robotics trial (NEJM, 2010), and 6 other randomized trials. In a collaboration with UCLA engineers, we have developed inexpensive, wireless, wearable sensors and a simple communications platform that utilizes activity pattern-recognition, machine-learning algorithms to monitor the mobility and exercise-related activities of patients during stage 2 and 3 trials. The sensors also provide clinically important outcomes about the type, quantity, and quality of activities that patients actually perform outside of the laboratory (Stroke 2011).

Clinical Sites

University of California – Los Angeles

Bruce H. Dobkin, MD, Principal Investigator