Based in Charleston, South Carolina, the Barbara S. Christie Evoked Potential Operant Conditioning (EPOC) Lab has been serving the greater Charleston community through neurorehabilitation research activities since 2015. For more than two decades, Principle Investigator and director, Dr. Aiko Thompson, has been investigating normal and impaired movement control and the ability of our nervous system to change its neuron-to-neuron connections (called plasticity) and thereby its function, towards developing strategies to enhance function recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI) and other neuromuscular disorders. Based on the breadth of knowledge, Dr. Thompson and the EPOC lab team develop and test new operant conditioning training protocols for alleviating spasticity and pain and improving impaired movement control in people with chronic SCI (www.operantconditioning.org). The EPOC Lab is currently recruiting individuals with SCI to participate in several different research studies.
