Bryan Howell

Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering

My lab studies implantable and wearable devices for treating neurological impairment, namely with deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). Projects evolve through theoretical and preclinical stages of development, combining biophysical and dynamic causal modeling, medical imaging, and device prototyping, to test new concepts and strategies for these neurotechnologies. Noninvasive studies on tES are conducted in tissue phantoms and healthy human subjects in-house, and we collaborate with physicians to test new concepts in clinical populations.

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering

Education

  • Ph.D. Duke University, 2015

Research Interests

  • Biophysical deconstruction of evoked potentials to subcallosal and subthalamic DBS.
  • Predictive modeling of DBS for targeting and parameter optimization.
  • Combinatorial and interferential strategies for tES.
  • Personalized, home-based administration of tES.

Representative Publications

  • Howell, Bryan, and Cameron C. McIntyre. “Feasibility of Interferential and Pulsed Transcranial Electrical Stimulation for Neuromodulation at the Human Scale.” Neuromodulation : Journal of the International Neuromodulation Society 24, no. 5 (July 2021): 843–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/ner.13137.
  • Noecker, Angela M., Anneke M. Frankemolle-Gilbert, Bryan Howell, Mikkel V. Petersen, Sinem Balta Beylergil, Aasef G. Shaikh, and Cameron C. McIntyre. “StimVision v2: Examples and Applications in Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease.” Neuromodulation : Journal of the International Neuromodulation Society 24, no. 2 (February 2021): 248–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ner.13350.
  • Lee, Hyung-Min, Bryan Howell, Warren M. Grill, and Maysam Ghovanloo. “Stimulation Efficiency With Decaying Exponential Waveforms in a Wirelessly Powered Switched-Capacitor Discharge Stimulation System.” Ieee Transactions on Bio Medical Engineering 65, no. 5 (May 2018): 1095–1106. https://doi.org/10.1109/tbme.2017.2741107.
  • Gunalan, Kabilar, Ashutosh Chaturvedi, Bryan Howell, Yuval Duchin, Scott F. Lempka, Remi Patriat, Guillermo Sapiro, Noam Harel, and Cameron C. McIntyre. “Creating and parameterizing patient-specific deep brain stimulation pathway-activation models using the hyperdirect pathway as an example.” Plos One 12, no. 4 (January 2017): e0176132. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176132.
  • Howell, Bryan, Leonel E. Medina, and Warren M. Grill. “Effects of frequency-dependent membrane capacitance on neural excitability.” Journal of Neural Engineering 12, no. 5 (October 2015): 56015–56015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2560/12/5/056015.