Iahn Cajigas, MD, PhD

Dr. Iahn Cajigas is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical and research focus lies in restoring movement to individuals affected by neurologic injury through a combination of systems neuroscience, translational engineering, and deep brain stimulation (DBS). During neurosurgery residency, he was awarded an NIH R25 to develop a fully implanted brain-computer interface (BCI) that enabled a patient with cervical spinal cord injury to regain hand grasp using a neuroprosthetic system in the home environment. He also co-led the first-in-human pilot study of directional DBS targeting the cuneiform nucleus for levodopa-resistant freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease which motivated the design of his current multi-site clinical trial funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Dr. Cajigas and his laboratory continue to explore the relationships between brain signals and natural movement to advance adaptive BCI and DBS therapies for motor recovery.