Baker Research Laboratory

Dr. Kelsey Baker (Potter) earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. There she underwent formal interdisciplinary training in biomaterials, neurodegeneration and neural engineering. Her graduate work focused on understanding and developing systems to prevent neurodegeneration to implanted intracortical microelectrodes. The goal of Dr. Baker’s work was to deploy anti-oxidative strategies that would improve long-term device efficacy. From this experience, Dr. Baker developed expertise in immunohistochemical analysis of inflammation, plastic changes in neuronal cell bodies following brain insult and the role of oxidative stress events in intracortical microelectrode failure.

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During Dr. Baker’s post-doctoral work, she translated her knowledge regarding neurodegeneration into a more clinical setting after joining Dr. Ela Plow’s Neuromodulation and Stroke Recovery lab at the Lerner Research Institute in the Cleveland Clinic. To date, her work has focused on whether damage to motor output pathways from the brain following stroke can influence the (1) efficacy of non-invasive brain stimulation and (2) amount of plasticity essential for functional recovery. Currently, her primary research emphasis is to evaluate the feasibility of non-invasive neuromodulation to improve motor recovery in Veterans and patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). In addition, she seeks to use neurophysiology and neuroimaging techniques to better define incompleteness of SCI as to improve the standard of care.