Professor Neville J. Hogan

The AP article Robots Aid Stroke Victims, Autistic Kids said

After more than 2 1/2 years of physical therapy and electronic stimulation, stroke victim Mike Marin still couldn’t open a door with his left hand. Now, thanks to a robot, Marin can open a door and his atrophied left arm isn’t completely useless anymore.
 
Marin is at the forefront of what may seem an unlikely use for robots: providing the caring human touch. For three months in rehab at a suburb north of New York, an unnamed and unlikely looking robot guided his arm repeatedly through an ordinary video game. Where normal therapy failed, the constant robot-guided repetitions worked.
 
The patients’ scores on the video game — based on their ability to guide the joystick and grasp and release it properly without the robot’s help — have improved about 10 percent, said MIT roboticist Hermano Igo Krebs.
 
“We’re able to show consistently better outcome with therapy using robots rather than conventional standard care,” said his MIT colleague, Neville Hogan.

Professor Neville J. Hogan, Ph.D., 2 Hon DScs is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is cofounder of Interactive Motion Technologies and a board member of Advanced Mechanical Technologies. His patents include System and method for medical imaging utilizing a robotic device, and robotic device for use in medical imaging and Interactive robotic therapist.
 
Neville’s principal professional interests are in the design, control, analysis and simulation of physical systems. His research has contributed to robotics, biomechanics and our knowledge of how the brain controls movement, emphasizing coordination, contact tasks and tool use. He proposed impedance control, a method for controlling dynamic interaction in natural and artificial systems that has been widely adopted and elaborated in research laboratories and industry worldwide. Recently he has pioneered the application of physically-interactive robots to neuro-rehabilitation and has shown that robotic treatment of stroke patients can increase the benefits of therapy by a factor of two to an order of magnitude. This work is frequently featured in the national and international media.
 
He authored the innovative Amazon download Guest editorial: An article from: Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development and authored Integrated Modeling of Physical System Dynamics. He coauthored Intermittency in Preplanned Elbow Movements Persists in the Absence of Visual Feedback, Motions or muscles? Some behavioral factors underlying robotic assistance of motor recovery, Response to upper-limb robotics and functional neuromuscular stimulation following stroke, Quantization of continuous arm movements in humans with brain injury, and Rehabilitation robotics: pilot trial of a spatial extension for MIT-Manus.
 
Neville earned a Diploma in Engineering (with distinction) from the College of Technology, Dublin, Ireland, in 1970. He earned a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1973, a Mechanical Engineer Degree from MIT in 1976, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1977. He was also awarded a Doctor Honorem Causa, from the Technical University of Delft in 1997, the 2004 Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Dublin Institute of Technology in 2004. He enjoys skiing, scuba-diving and playing drums and competition aerobatics.