Office Hours: Episode 4

Episode Extras

• Learn More About Dr. Collin Bowersock

  Dr. Collin Bowersock is an applied research scientist at the Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute at Oklahoma State University. Trained in biomechanics and kinesiology, his research focuses on the mechanisms of motor control to advance physical training and rehabilitation paradigms. Dr. Bowersock has collaborated with clinical populations, including individuals with spinal cord injury and cerebral palsy, and has helped develop rehabilitative technologies such as robotic stand trainers and wearable exoskeletons designed to enhance mobility and recovery. His ongoing work examines changes in motor control across the lifespan with the goal of advancing rehabilitation, reducing injury risk, and improving physical performance.

  Links to Dr. Bowersock's Work

  Work with Early Running and Biomechanics

  1. Independent Effects of Step Length and Foot Strike Pattern on Tibiofemoral Joint Forces During Running

  2. Reduced Step Length Reduces Knee Joint Contact Forces During Running Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction but Does Not Alter Inter-Limb Asymmetry

   Work with Spinal Cord Rehabilitation

  1. Standing Reactive Postural Responses of Lower Limbs With and Without Self-Balance Assistance in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury Receiving Epidural Stimulation

  2. Robotic Upright Stand Trainer (RobUST) and Postural Control in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury

  Work with Exoskeletons

  1. Differential and Adjustable Stiffness Leaf Spring Ankle Foot Orthoses Enhance Gait Propulsion and Task Versatility in Cerebral Palsy

  2. Feasibility of Using Autonomous Ankle Exoskeletons to Augment Community Walking in Cerebral Palsy

  3. A Lightweight Powered Elbow Exoskeleton for Manual Handling Tasks

• Read the Transcript

  [Music] 

  Liz Wayne: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of office hours with Liz Wayne. This is a podcast brought to you by the Biomedical Engineering Society. I'm Liz, an assistant professor in bioengineering, and I'm going to introduce you to the world of biomedical engineering through my eyes or my voice from jeans and machines. We can do it all. We're going to dive into how discoveries are made, how research becomes medicine, and what it's actually like to work in academia today.  

  So, I have a guilty confession. I've been watching this soap opera, so I feel like I'm becoming like my grandmother, like an auntie or something. I've never been a soap opera person, and this one, it's a new one, it's called Beyond the Gates. And I really hate to admit it, but I'm hooked. Like, I think I had a break one day, and I just, like, turned it on, and like, Hulu keeps recommending it, and I said, “sure.” And then, like: “Oh no, I like it.” I'm on the Reddit fan page all the time because I'm trying to see what other people think. And if I'm also being honest, I really can't keep up with the pace of a soap opera, because it comes on, you know, every day for an hour, and that's like five hours of TV, and I'm like, I nothing happens that much anyway, and I still know what's going on. Okay, so where am I going with this? So, there's this one plot of the story of this character named Derek. And so, spoilers, if people are actually watching that show. Derek was training for a triathlon, and in the process, he had an accident, and so now he is in the hospital, and he's unable to walk, he's paralyzed. So, it's a soap opera, we don't actually know how long this is going to last, like if this is his new arc or not. But what's also spicy about this one is that the nurse that's helping him get through his rehabilitation is also the ex who just rejected him, rejected his marriage proposal, and then the physical therapist that's helping him is like the woman he's trying to date right now. So, it's like, really interesting.  

  But soap opera stuff aside, and the fact that this is me with those classic soap opera arcs, it’s making me think about people who have that experience of having an injury, having to go through rehabilitation, maybe, hopefully not with your ex and your next but there's this theme of them, this experience of what it means for that person who's going through maybe an identity challenge, but also trying to think, what are the best things that I can do to get better, to heal, or what does my life look like now? So that whole process of rehabilitation and injury and just all the things that it means. And so, I’ve been thinking, maybe we should talk more about what that rehabilitation thing and what it means. And you know, if you actually do want soaps and you care about this character, Derek, I can talk about that later.  

  But today we have a special guest, Dr. Colin Bowersock. He's a Principal Scientist at Oklahoma State University, and he works in the Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute (HPNRI), and I'm hoping that with our special guest, we can really deep dive into the experience of Derek or people, real people like Derek, and think about how people recover after injury. Welcome to the show. Colin, how are you doing today?  

  Colin Bowersock: I'm doing really well. Thank you.  

  Liz: I know it's football season, so I'm sure it's an exciting time in Oklahoma. 

  Colin: Always. It's game day today.  

  Liz: Is it game day? 

  Colin: Today's game day. We got an early game today on Friday playing Tulsa. So our cross-state rivals. 

  Liz: That's a big deal. So you’ve got to leave campus early. 

  Colin: Oh, yeah, we get kicked out of our parking lots, you know, pretty early. Got to get the tailgate ready. 

  Liz: Got to get the tailgate ready. You know, I think you do work with some of the sports, but you think about it a different way. So why don't you, in your own words, tell us who you are and what you do? 

  Colin: Sure, I'd love to; It's like you said. Colin Bowersock, I grew up in a small town in North Texas, north of Dallas and Wichita Falls. There I played sports, mostly soccer. When I got older, you had to pick one. So I got really interested, obviously, in sports and staying healthy and not getting injured, and how we perform. So, then I went to school at Texas Tech University, got a Bachelor’s in exercise science there, and became more interested in really the hard science of movement, and so there I went to East Carolina University to get a master’s degree in biomechanics. Biomechanics, your listeners probably know, but it's really studying how the forces in our body, that are generated by us, and also generated on us. So, as we, you know, run, we push down into the ground, but the ground also pushes up into us. And so, what do these forces look like in our different joints, in our bones, in our muscles? How do we move within them? And then, what are some healthy kinds of patterns of movement to help us maintain either high performance, or to get back into rehabilitation after an injury or a surgery, or maintain these movements throughout our lifetime. 

  Liz: You said the hard science of movement. And I thought that was really interesting. Maybe, can you talk about what you mean when you say hard science? Or is there, like a particular way you think about movement that other people don't think about? How do people think about movement in general, and where do you fit into it?  

  Colin: I guess the hard science is like, this is what we can see, and this is what we can measure, and this is what we can quantify. So, we can see how the ankle and the knee and the leg move. We can measure it. We can see how fast it's happening. We can see what degrees of rotation at different times. We can see how high you jump, how far you throw, how fast your arm moves. So, things we can look at and see. It's kind of, you know, the hard science. Now, after my master's, I moved into a PhD program where it's a little bit less about what you can see and a little more testing theories. So, this was more of a PhD in motor control, in theories about, okay, I can see us moving our leg, but how is any of that happening?  

  Liz: So, like neurons now.  

  Colin: Exactly, a little bit of neuroscience, a little bit of motor control, trying to understand how is the spinal cord controlling these movements? How is the brain controlling these movements? How do they interact together, and why do we move in these patterns that we do, that are pretty entrained into us? Everyone you know has kind of a gait pattern that looks somewhat similar across the board. If I was to walk outside, and you were to walk outside, and we could walk, you know, together, it would look similar. But if you couldn't see anything else about us except the way we move our close friends and family could be like, Oh, that's Liz. And I'm not sure who else they're walking with. 

  Liz: I've definitely done that. I'm like, Oh, I know, there you are. I see you. Yeah, definitely people say that about me too.  

  Colin: Yeah, exactly. So it's, it gets a little bit away from the hard science, but really trying to understand why and how we move, the way we move, and again, understanding which of these patterns are healthy, which of these are adapted because of a reason, whether that's pain or injury or even fear, anxiety, sleep, fatigue, all these things have a big effect and more effect than sometimes we think of, you know, our movement patterns. 

  Liz: Yeah, I'm curious, because they seem like two dramatically different ways to think about the exact same problem. Would you say that people do both, or they're kind of like fields where there are people who think only the mechanics that we can measure matter versus the theory.  

  Colin: I don't think you'd find too many that say this is the only thing that matters, the mechanics you know, the other stuff we can't always explain it, so why study it? But it's not- I guess my path isn't traditional, so it's a little bit different. Biomechanics really taught me, I say, a hard science, so many hard skills. It taught me how to code. It taught me how to do motion capture. It taught me how to measure muscle activity, so when our muscles are turned on, when they're off. How to design experiments with human participants. Really hard, gritty stats, hard science. So, I really like it as a discipline. And I always tell people I'm traditionally trained as a bio-mechanist, and people typically understand what that means. And then when you kind of move away from that through motor control and neuroscience, it's not that it's not hard science. It's just always a secondary measure of something we're trying to get at. Right? If we're looking, trying to understand brain activity, we look at blood oxygen adjacent in the brain and try to say something about how this area of the brain must be activated during this time during this task. So, the extrapolations get a little bit large. Not to say that they're not valid at all. They have been very valid, but it is a little bit different way of going about measuring things. Instead of like, Oh, I see the elbow moving, I'll measure it.  

  Liz: Yeah, no, I think this is really interesting. So how do you measure this? And how do you have a lab that does that? Do you just, like, say, “hey, can I take pictures of you walking, please, or running?" You’re just like, I just want to take lots of pictures of you running. 

  Colin: You're not far off. So instead of taking one picture from one camera, we take, you know, videos at- you take about 100 pictures a second. And instead of one camera, you use 10 to 12 cameras, so you're getting all different angles to see how they're moving. And traditionally, it's done, and then you put little reflective markers. They look like little pieces of tape. This technology is often seen when you make movies or video games. You'll see those little reflective spheres on, you know, the actor or the participant,  

  Liz: I think about the Marvel movies, where everything is CGI,  

  Colin: Yeah. So, you can see, you know how the different segments of the body are moving, and then we make a model. For example, let's take your forearm; we'll model that as a cylinder. And then let's take your upper arm; we'll also model that as a cylinder. And in between them is a joint which can go in between, you know, full extension. So, 180 degrees and can't really go past that. We say, don't allow any movement past this. It's not realistic to, you know, all the way closed. And so you have all these markers all over the person that you can really, you know, through a lot of computer help and some simulation, understand at this exact moment what's our knee angle at, and where this can kind of become important. Like, let's say you were studying an athlete, a track athlete, and you wanted to know what they look like as soon as their foot touches the ground from a sprint. We want to see what's their knee angle at right then. You know, is that a good angle to be in? Or could we have some coaching to kind of improve that? And that's a little bit of an extreme example of if you were an athlete and trying to improve, you would look at what a really good athlete looks like, what's a novice athlete look like? We assume the really good athlete is going to be, you know, better at it. So, we can try to move towards that, or we can say this is a really good position to put your body in to get the most force out of a sprint, out of a jump, out of a push. So, we can look at it that way too. 

  Liz: That's really neat, Colin. I'm thinking about this like this just sounds like really insane in a good way, but it sounds like you guys, and I think part of the human performance and Nutrition Research Institute like bigger, broader goals that you guys can take these measurements, so you can measure biomechanics, so how things are moving physically, and then connecting those to the theory, so either neuronal movement or nutrition, so how our muscles are able to move, and like coordinate movement. You can use that to do things like optimize athlete performance or help with their training schedule even. Is that kind of what happens now in sports medicine? 

  Colin: Yeah, one of our big goals is to try to improve performance. Now, the way we define performance is pretty wide. The in the example we're talking about that's, you know, we'll call it like true athletic performance, trying to get someone better at the sport that they're playing at a very high level. But here where I'm working at HPNRI, it's also like my day-to-day performance, you know, I'm no longer an athlete, but I do like running and I do like cycling. I'm not competing, but I am performing. I'm still an athlete. Other people's performance or something they want to be really good at, you know? I want to be really good at kayaking, canoeing. You know, my performance is being able to lift my kayak over my head so I can walk it down to the lake and then go by myself. I need to perform really good at that task. So, we use kind of this athlete performance-based model, but we really want to have much broader implications, instead of just true sports performance, kind of as we're talking about. But it's a really nice kind of model and example. And as you said, how does nutrition play into that? How does sleep play into that? We have other scientists on board that are very good. They look at a lot of bone morphology, you know, how do our bones look? How does that affect our movement? How can we make our bones stronger, better, healthier? Same thing with muscles. How can we train specific muscles in very, you know, fancy ways to get bigger, faster, stronger, less fatigued, you know, all these things that kind of encompass performance, but outside, just the athlete (with quotation marks) model. 

  Liz: Yeah, I see that. And so performance in really human experience, like, how does this help everyone do their everyday function? There's so many examples, even the ones you just mentioned. But something I just thought about is a lot of times people's jobs have repetitive movements that over years or decades if I'm a factory worker, if I'm just someone who even just sits at a computer and types you get all of these different impairments in motion because of doing these movements. And so, what are better ways to even help in workplace settings where you can prevent some type of injuries from developing over time, because you now have better information about how that particular motion, if not done in the right way or angle, is actually leading to injury, right? So, things like prevention as well? 

  Colin: Yeah, that is such a good example. You know, repetitive movements: really easy way to get hurt. You just keep doing it over and over, and eventually, either your, you know, tissues, your body, wears out, or your performance, your repetitive movement, you lose your form. And this is how - perfect little segue - I kind of branched into more the field of engineering. So, after my PhD and a couple of postdocs, I was working in an engineering department. So, a little again, outside of my comfort zone, I worked with some phenomenal mechanical engineers, electrical engineers. These guys and gals were very good at what they do, and so for those types of repetitive movements you're talking about. Factory workers, they were developing wearable exoskeletons. So, these are very lightweight devices. It's not big and bulky that help you move with less effort. So, less muscle force. Let's imagine a factory worker that's picking up 40 pound box over and over and over, right? Really tough on the back, really tough on the biceps, the forearms, the shoulders. So, who was heading this research was Daniel Colley. He was a Master's student at the time. I mean, he developed a wearable upper body exoskeleton, and I helped, you, know, helped him test and design the experiments to see if it worked. But this device was wearable. You had special gloves, and the gloves could sense as soon as you pick something up. So, if you squeezed, the exoskeleton would know that now you're grabbing something. So then it would help you lift it up to a point. And it had really cool accelerometers in the joints, so it would know don't pick it up too far. It was quite a project. 

  Liz: That's pretty advanced, and I can imagine it really helps people lift those kinds of objects over time, but not have as much wear and tear in their body.  

  Colin: Exactly.  

  Liz: Without minimizing performance, wow. I'm just envisioning what the future looks like if these kinds of things were more accessible. And thinking about the HPNRI, I was looking at the website and looking at some of the videos. It's some pretty cool videos, I recommend everyone to check out this website. What I thought was interesting was this seems like a big effort from the state of Oklahoma as well, and so one of the missions is also to help people in Oklahoma. So not just people like student athletes at the university, the impact of the research you do would actually help people who live in Oklahoma. Can you talk a bit about that? 

  Colin: Yeah, and that's a really important goal for us as an institute and university. Oklahoma State University is a land grant university, and everything that goes along with that is, you know, empowering, improving the lives of Oklahomans, and beyond. So Oklahoma is pretty low on some of the metrics that you would imagine go with performance. Our obesity rate is quite high, kind of things along that nature. So, what we're trying to do is, yeah, you had a really good point earlier. People's, you know, life experience performance. So, one thing we're trying to understand is what's causing the obesity- are we sedentary? It seems likely. But, you know, just saying someone's overweight does not mean they're unhealthy. I really don’t want to go down that route too much. But, you know, BMI is a rough measure, but it does a really good job for a big population. But anyways, yeah, our goal is to improve the lives of Oklahomans. You know, how do we get them moving longer, living longer, living longer, but healthy lives. One of our researchers was doing a clinical trial on older adults, and it was helping them train. They were one sedentary, and now they've joined this study to help train. And one of the study outcomes is once these classes and equipment and knowledge became available, many of them stayed active. So, some of it is just like they don't want to go to the gym, or don't know how to go to the gym, uncomfortable there. But if you have little centers where someone can come and teach you, and you don't need a lot of equipment, you can do this at your home, your house where it's convenient. In Oklahoma, like a lot of these people live in rural areas where driving to the gym every day is not quite feasible. So now if we can teach them, you know, here are some ways you can stay active. And as a really good example, one of the research participants came up afterwards and thanked the PI on that project, Bree Baker, and said, “you helped me so much. I was never able to pick up my grandkid, and now, after this, I'm able to,” and just like, that's, you know, that's how you really see the change, you know, I mean, I love looking at the numbers, the measures, the stats, you know, that's where the nerd-ing comes in. But truly looking at how, you know, little things like that, you really are changing people's lives and their experience. 

  Liz: Yeah, super. Helpful to think about the applications and the implications of the work in how that engagement happens. And I'm sure even getting people to participate is not trivial, either. So, there's a really interesting space here. I'm going to ask you about some of the work that you do. I actually tried to read one of your papers, so you get to tell me whether I do a good job on this or not. But I also wanted to kind of go back to you talking about engineering, and then you were talking about how you became an engineer, and I was wondering if you could talk about, like, why you think engineering was necessary or useful to build as a skill set onto what you're doing, 

  Colin: Yeah, as you say, “become an engineer.” I don't think I've become an engineer, but I did work with some engineers and got really well trained in their field because of them. But I found engineering, maybe not a necessary next step, but an incredibly helpful one, as I talked about these theories and models in motor control. One really good example was this somewhat recent paper by Ryu and Kuo. It was an engineering paper where they devised a theoretical model for how we move.  

  And I'm not going to get too into it, but there's a model that the spinal cord controls, and it is a feed forward model, so it has a rhythmic oscillator and you walk, right? So the model is, it feeds forward - your right leg moves, your left leg moves, your right leg moves, your left leg moves. The other model is a feedback model, where as your foot hits the ground, you get information about it. Where is the foot? Is it too far? How long is it gone? How long did it take? And then that information gets processed by, in this example the brain, and then it sends back a signal to either continue doing the same thing, or we need to make a little tweak, so more of a closed loop model. Now, it’s probably somewhere in between, it's both, right? We have the spinal cord that kind of generates the rhythmic movement of walking, and then we have the brain that's like, oh, here comes a curve, or we had a little slip or something where we need to change our walking. And so, without this understanding of these closed loop, open loop, I would never be saying these words when I was first being trained. I did not understand this field of models.  

  But the field of engineering does such a great job at devising and really thinking theoretically. How do we move in these ways? They create these models, and then they test these models on dynamic walkers. So, they create little brains, not exactly, but, you know, computers, they're like, okay, they get this information. They get a zero or a one or somewhere in between. How do they adapt the walking of the robot that we've created? And does this model really make sense? Does this look like how we move? Or is this like this isn't quite it? Or what about in this environment? Sure, it can walk across something really flat, but what about if we're going uphill, or what if it's really rough, you know? And then, you know, these models get weighed differently. I think that's the way engineering has really improved me as a researcher to understand how to apply these things. And now I'm going back the other way. You know, they've shown that these models work in dynamic walkers, and it makes sense. I'd like to see if this really is the way we, as individuals, you know, move in true fashion. So that is why I think, yeah, you asked if becoming an engineer was a necessary step. No, but wow, has it improved my research, and I really think that's how all of us get you get a little information here, little information there, more information here, you learn from other people, and then you can really make such broader impacts and get a much larger scope of some of the questions you're trying to answer. 

  Liz: Yeah, true biomedical engineering, because you have to integrate multiple topics. I guess the difference is the framework that you're using to answer the question and building the model that allows you to answer the question. Where I think it's not that other disciplines don't build models, but I think in engineering, the model itself also becomes the research question, rather than just like the tool that you're using to answer it. And I think that's kind of like where the pivot is, where other spaces you just have a tool, just like I have a microscope and I use it. But in engineering, how you made that microscope was the research as well as what it's doing and how accurate it is.  

  Colin: That's so well put. I mean, yeah, the model is the research project. Like, look how well this works. And you know now it's not just a tool, but so well explained and detailed, and you change these little things. And it's like, okay, this is the product and but engineering, and especially biomedical engineering, really, all fields are in go. It's like, okay, and now we can test this model and revise, and then we come back and let's redo the model and make it better. 

  Liz: Yeah, it's the joy and the pain. So I appreciate you calling because you gave me a pretty good- I feel like I understand a little bit better how we think about movement, and that encompasses all the other reasons why you want to look at movement, because you care about understanding how people walk well, and what happens when we don't walk well? What happens in different gaits, different environments, and how we can use that information to help people perform in their daily lives or in athletic situations better. So maybe we could talk a little about some of the work that you're doing in particular. And so, what would you describe as the research question you think about the most these days? 

  Colin: the one I think about the most, and we talked about a little bit, is truly understanding which saying that already makes me laugh, yeah. How are we controlling some of these motor outputs, some of these movements?  

  Liz: So, when you say motor output, you mean, what does motor mean in this context? I'm thinking of a car that turned on, like a little engine, but then in the body, what does that mean? 

  Colin: Yeah, the motor output can mean one: the muscles firing. So that is the output, is the muscles activate. More output is in the muscles activate, and then our leg moves forward, and then the leg moving forward, coupled with everything else, is also now we're doing some sort of walking or jumping or running or standing. That's kind of all encompassing. That's the output. Other people define it a little more granular as like, just the muscle contraction is like the true motor output. 

  Liz: But you would say the whole thing, so the whole act of the movement is the motor output, and motor control is just, how did you actually organize all of the things you need to organize to achieve that movement? 

  Colin: Yeah. And where did it generate from, right? Okay, so where did the Where did the output start? You know, we understand. How do muscles, you know, contract, how they get signaled? You know, there's depolarization that comes from neurons, that comes from the brain or the spinal cord, you know, and they respond to these chemical signals. So those are outputs. I always kind of go back to gait. I think it's something understandable, but we could, you know, broaden this out into other concepts. We'll just stick with gait. So, we think about walking. Let's think about an infant. If you put them in the right environment, you may have seen these different experiments, but if you hold the baby over water, they have a gait pattern, right? Their little legs start moving. Their little arms start moving. So it is something entrained, you know, within us, and it seems to be entrained within very low levels. And I would argue, like, spinal cord central pattern generator. 

  Liz: So, I have a little kid now, and Instagram feeds this to me. Like, they think-  Instagram only shows me baby stuff now, like, babies don't like sitting on grass, so they their feet always get really straight when they're over grass, for some reason. And like, is that really a thing? Do they just know they're on grass? Like, I'm trying not to touch the grass, 

  Colin: I have seen those videos. I cannot answer that for you. I'm sorry. 

  Liz: You're supposed to know this- the expert is in Office Hours, but yeah, like, why does it do that? But anyway, that's not your actual question. I'm coming back to you babies, they learn, there's a gait. 

  Colin: So, you know, there's an example in the babies. And then in another example, we could- someone with a spinal cord injury so they no longer have input, or they're no longer able to control their movements from the brain that section has been injured and there's no longer any signal coming down in my research and spinal cord injury, if, again, put in the right environment, or if the right sensory information stimulation occurs, we repeat these patterns. So, for an example, if an individual- and it takes a lot of work, a lot of rehabilitation, a lot of hours, a lot of effort by these participants, sure by the scientists, but by the participants, both enough rehabilitation and technology and help body weight support. But if you get an individual on a treadmill and the treadmill begins to move, they will take a step. You know, this isn't something they you're volitionally controlling. They can't think about taking a step. But as soon as the foot moves behind your hips, the muscles sense a stretch, the ligaments stretch, and they know like, Ooh, I sense a stretch, I better take a step. Same thing on the other side, step, step, step. And so, it does seem like the spinal cord is controlling mostly some of these movements, like walking, posture, balance, you know, kind of like reflexes, reactions, but it's a little more than just a reaction or a reflex. It's kind of this rhythmic movement. Now so, my argument is that the spinal cord is fundamentally controlling some of these movements. Obviously, the brain is very important in these movements as well. 

  Liz: And why would people separate the brain from the spinal cord? Maybe you have a better definition of the spinal cord, because I have none. I just think the spinal cord is a cord of neurons that go down your back from your brain. So, is the brain not in the spinal cord? Are they separate? 

  Colin: The spinal cord is able to control some stuff without some things, very scientific, without the brain. Oh, so it can independently do some actions, and then what it does is it does an action, and then it sends up to the brain, hey, we just did this action. And the brain can then send something back down, saying, like, okay, we need to alter this a little bit. Or great, or thanks for letting me know.  

  Liz: (laughs) “Thanks for letting me know”. 

  Colin: Sometimes you need to know. The classic example is stepping on a tack or putting your hand on a stove way before you ever sense pain or your brain's kind of aware of it. You already pull your hand away, or if you step on that tack, you already have a reflex. You already unweight and lift your foot up long before the brain's ever involved.   

  Liz: That's crazy. I did not know that.  

  Colin: Yeah, so your spinal cord does have little pockets of kind of bundles of neurons that get information from, let's say your feet, sensory information as you take a step, they go up into the spinal cord, and there is little centers there where all that sensory information kind of joins together and it can respond on its own without information from the brain. 

  Liz: Okay, this is the beauty of the chicken-  

  Colin: Yeah. 

  Liz:  So these, I'm guessing, is that how we know things like that? Like, there are these situations or experiments where if you remove certain parts of the brain, you're still able to move, because the spinal cord does these movements. Like, there's experiments that let us know that. 

  Colin: Yep, there's a classic folk experiment, which is, you know, the chicken with head cut off, you know, is that true? And it is. You know, if you grew up on a farm back in the day and you saw your grandmother wring a chicken's neck, it pops off, and the chicken runs around for a little bit, there is no brain left. And that's not quite an experiment, but it is an observation.  

  Liz: Yeah, don't try it.  

  Colin: Yeah, we have had some better experiments. Our lovely companions, the cat. There's been a lot of experiments in cats and rabbits and pigs where you can go into the cat and not artificially, but create your own spinal cord injury, where you separate, in all practicality, the brain and the spinal cord. It's called spinalization, the brain is no longer sending any signal down through the spinal cord, but they can still breathe and their heart's still pumping and things like that. And so, you put a cat on a treadmill, same thing, the treadmill starts moving. The cat can walk. Same thing with rabbits, it’s always, quite often, they do like a tilt platform where you could imagine standing on a floor, left foot on one floor, right foot on the other floor. And the floor may drop out at some point. And you do that, and the rabbit will respond in an appropriate manner. So, if the left side drops out, it'll, you know, push the left side down and relax the right side so that it can still maintain the posture. You do it the other way, it responds in an appropriate manner. So, it's not just a straight reflex, but a reflex to a specific action. 

  Liz: And you know, I just thought about this. The other example here is that when people have perfectly functioning brains, but after a spinal cord injury, they cannot move, right? And I think about this a lot, and I think of one of the papers that I think you just published in July, but looking at the gaits of people with cerebral palsy. So actually, my dad has cerebral palsy. He had this as a baby, actually, and so he is a paraplegic. So it's really interesting to think about that experience that he's had, but just like the brain connection or the spinal cord injury and thinking about gait. And so, I'm curious, for you with cerebral palsy, what have you learned about gait and kind of thinking about how people or how motor control works when there's injury in the spinal cord. 

  Colin: Yeah, so cerebral palsy, so that's something that happens during, you know, early development. It's an injury in the brain and not the spinal cord. So again, now we're kind of in the opposite realm of the spectrum, where it’s a healthy brain versus injured spinal cord, or, as you know, as someone that's been around this cerebral palsy is it manifests in so many different ways. So, you have really tonic or really tight muscles. Sometimes you have muscles that are non-responsive. So, the way it manifests is like, really different across individuals. You know, sometimes it's unilateral, bilateral, just lower limbs, just upper limb, one side, 

  Liz: Right or like, spastic, like muscle spasm versus, I guess,  

  Colin: Exactly. 

  Colin: I'm sure you experienced that. And you can get Botox to try to, you know, calm some of those things down. But, yeah, it's a really wide spectrum to study, and in those individuals, our main goal was to improve and maintain their mobility with mostly assistive devices. But what we were really trying to do is not create a device that they're so reliant upon it, right? We don't want to give you- you know, let's say I give you a cane. You don't need a cane, but you're like, hey, I look pretty cool in this cane. You start walking around with it, and then eventually I take your cane away, and you're like, dang, I can't walk really without my cane anymore, I was reliant, dependent on that. So, what we were trying to do is make devices that sure can aid but also rehab devices. So, these devices could help you walk in a functional gait pattern, but they would also sometimes make it harder to walk. So, we would provide resistance, almost like resistance training or weightlifting.  

  Liz: That's sort of adaptive,  

  Colin: Yeah, so they would have to push through it, or exactly what you said, adaptive. Sometimes you need a lot of help. Sometimes, let's back that off. Let's make you do most of the work. But we just didn't want something so restrictive. They're often put in or utilized, and you probably know them, the AFOs, the ankle, foot orthoses, but your big kind of cast type things, if you see someone wearing a walking boot, they're very similar to that. I mean, they can help movement, but it's also now you've constricted the ankle. Now you don't really fire your calf muscles, and you don't really use your feet or the muscles on the front of your shin, and so now, yes, you can walk better, but for how long until now you need another aid. Now you need hand walkers. And that's not always the case, and AFOs have done an incredible job of helping people stay mobile and independent, but we were just trying to do one step further. And let's try to make this adaptive to the different tasks they're performing. So, getting in and out of a car can be very difficult with these devices, or getting up off a floor. They don't look very cool if you're a younger kid where, like, wearing a robot looks awesome, right? Like, cool to get around, yeah, which is a big thing, you know. I mean, even today, I don't often wear things where I don't feel cool, you know, it doesn't, it's tough. So, in that field, it was learning a lot about more of the individual and what they needed to help them, and on more of an individual level, like these are what they need. This is what they're asking for. 

  [Music Break] 

  Liz: Think about all the technologies around this space, and I am thinking about the idea of having something that helped you control gait and even maybe even improve gait to a way where you wouldn't need other assistive devices, or the progression to needing more intensive assistive devices would be slower if it can keep you out of needing like a motorized wheelchair or something longer, then that's a win, right? So I think this is that was pretty interesting to me to think about the gait and like this, this change in, I think, practice or clinical care, where we're thinking, instead of this giving the crutches or just give you the device that doesn't adapt, it doesn't actually help train or help your muscles or improve motor control, there are things you have to rely on for life, and then because of that, you also may need more devices, because it maladapted you in other ways. And this is like a new regime of thinking, of trying to train muscles, and also being really specific, like patient centered, because everyone does have different- the need would be different, and it would be, probably implausible to make a device that works the same way for every patient, every person, right? 

  Colin: Exactly. And that's, you know, one of the big buzzwords, and it's true, is this individualized medicine, right? Like it's not, we can't just create one, give this device. To them often. They don't get a whole lot of training or information. It's just kind of wear this when you walk, and probably you can walk further, but you put it perfectly, if we can keep them, you know, or if an individual can stay independent, walk independently for longer, sure, maybe at the end they're going to need to use a wheelchair for long days in class, right? Or going on something they need an aid. But if we can keep them from having to be so reliant on it, like you said, it's a win. I'd like how you put that as kind of a shift in thinking, instead of this has worked, use this. You know, you'll be able to walk today versus, will I be able to walk in six years, like I'm walking today.  

  Liz: Or longer? How do I stay in the workforce longer? How do I go to my kid's game? Or how do I go up and down these stairs? How do I go to a restaurant? Or go to the bathroom, right? There's so many activities. And like, the movement that it requires is really, really interesting, 

  Colin: Yep. And to bring that all back around, you know, that's my performance, that life performance, being able to go up and down stairs, go to my kid’s game, do these things. That's my daily performance. I want to do these things well and continue to do them well and maybe do them better. 

  Liz: I mean, that's a really tall order. That's really a lot. And so, for you, this looks like thinking about gait and you work on devices. So, what is this? What is the device sort of, maybe you can take us through what it kind of looks like when you're thinking about making a- what does it mean to make a device that helps train for motor control? 

  Colin: Yeah, no. Adaptive is a very good term, I'll tell you the one device was, we call this a powered device, meaning it has a little battery and a little motor to power itself. And so, this device was worn around the waist. You can imagine a little waist belt, kind of like a hiking backpack, but no straps, just the waist belt, and then it has, you can think of bicycle sprockets on the back, in case, very small, with chains on the back of the sprockets. Describing this is so far so good. Okay, so that's where the that's where, like, the movement happens. So, the sprocket can turn left in the sprocket can turn right, and that, you know, makes the chain shorten and lengthen. And then you go all the way down with some cables, and it goes down to where the device actually attaches to the body, kind of at the ankle joint. So, you have now a pulley at the ankle, and that's where these cables kind of go into. So, when your foot's on the ground there's a little sensor in the device, and it knows your foot's on the ground. And as you walk, you have to push off on your toe. As we walk, we push off, and that moves us forward. Well, now the device knows that, and it will pull up on that chain, up on your back, and propel you forward so it pushes your foot down for you and helps you walk. That's kind of the basic mechanics of it.  And now, when your foot's in the air, to help you clear your toe from the ground, you got to pick your toe up. You can't just leave your foot, you know all the way down, you'll drag your toe so it also knows when your foot's in the air, and then it helps you lift your foot up while your foot's going through the air while your other one's on the ground. So that's the assistive way.  

  And then resistive is it just does kind of the opposite. When your foot's on the ground, it makes it harder for you to push through. And so now you have to use your muscles a little more, but the idea is you could use that at home. You don't have to go into a PT office, a clinic, special, very expensive training, but maybe you could use this in the resistive mode, you know, five to 10 minutes a day, work on your muscles, try to get stronger, and then when you need that assistive mode, it's there for you. So, you can keep up with your kids, keep up with your grandkids, keep up with your siblings, you know. So, you're a part of all the activities you want to be a part of.  

  Liz: That's pretty cool. That's amazing. I'm also getting from the picture I visualized, there's also ways that you can maybe wear this underneath your clothes. So, it's not always obvious. So, getting back to that point about like, what's cool or not cool to wear, and increasing retention of treatment by people being willing to wear it. 

  Colin: Yeah, for sure, that would be the final goal is to, you know, make these things a little more commercialized, make them cool and make them sleep in the research lab sometimes. I mean, we've tried to make it extremely comfortable. You know, we got the 3D printers and all that stuff, but it's not quite under the clothes yet. Another device that I got to work with when I was working in that lab, instead of powered, it was unpowered, right? But it stored the energy and then used it at the appropriate time. As we walk, if you weren't using your muscles and you just kind of relaxed, you know, your ankle muscles, your toe would go up towards your knee as you stand, right and as you walk, and that's kind of- you know the energy of the ground is pushing up on your toes. Well, if we use a spring, we can store that energy. So, as you walk, you're kind of loading that spring with all your body weight, and as soon as you start to push off and unweight, you let go of that spring, and it helps you push forward. That's another device that's a little less complex, not as expensive. You don't need a battery. It's not as cumbersome. So that's another device we tried out with pretty good success. One success is, yes, it worked. Success number two is the participants liked it, and sometimes that's, you know, just as important, if you make something that no one wants to wear and doesn't feel good and makes it really uncomfortable, but you have good numbers, it's not really a win. But if it's something like, yes, it is truly helping them, and they like wearing it and it feels comfortable and it feels good, you know, that's really what you're looking for. 

  Liz: That's pretty neat. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions, but exciting ones. I do keep thinking about what my dad's experience would have been like if these kinds of things were available to him, or if he knew that they were kind of available. There does seem to be, like, a window here. Maybe, is there a window for, like, when people try these things versus, you know, maybe the muscles atrophied, or something has kind of gone too far, and these things are no longer helpful? 

  Colin: I think there could be a window. And, I mean, I don't like to, yeah, admit that, I guess, like, I don't want to ever say it's ever too late, you know, maybe it's going to take a really long time to get back to the point to where you know something like that could help. But to that point there is- when you're a younger individual, for example, with cerebral palsy. If you have it early in life, and it's diagnosed, typically, you get a lot of care. You get a lot of help. You're in school, you know? You get the physical therapy. But then as you become an adult, that kind of drops off, and you're kind of on your own after that. And that's really where we were, and I currently, with another project we're working on, like that's where we really want to intervene. You no longer have this support system. Maybe you don't live in your parents' house anymore. You no longer have that physical therapist at your school. So, you're kind of on your own, and it's hard, and you don't have, you know, the sport, you don't have the caretaker help. So that's where we want to kind of intervene, is like, is there some sort of at-home, different trainings, different devices that can, again, as you said, kind of prolong this independence and this, very, you know, functional movement to later in life, or maybe throughout life. 

  Liz: I hear you, this is a really important thing that helps a lot of people. I think losing mobility is something that people either don't think about because walking feels like breathing, and why would you ever really think about not breathing? Right? But when you don't have that, or it's your ability that gets lowered, you think about how much it affects everything. And I'm even thinking about a colleague of mine who has arthritis, who's thinking about mobility daily and you know, you'll do anything to want to walk again or to move. I think these things are really powerful technologies. I was also thinking about how you were talking about how people look at this from a biomechanical perspective, like gait and movement and angles. And then there's the theory side of this. And the theory side, to me, is interesting because there's so many reasons why people might need these type of technologies and so maybe one of my last questions before I open it up to you again is because there so many different reasons why people might need these kinds of assistive technologies, or their gait is changing when you're designing something, does it matter whether it's brain oriented or spinal cord oriented, if it's like an autoimmune disorder, something that was developmentally occurring, genetic or even something that was like, I just had an accident, but nothing was wrong before this, you know, accident that occurred. Does it matter?  

  Colin: I think it does matter. You, in most of these situations, you do have some mobility, right? And now you just need an aid for what you've lost. And so, for that example, with the exoskeleton, the upper body one right? You still have complete, you know, use. Maybe you had a low back injury or something of the sort. We didn't quite have this equipment, but still full use of your hand. So like, All right, we have our hands. Why don't we put little sensors in the hands, and when we squeeze, and this is how prosthetics work, right? You still have muscles in the upper arm if you have, like, a below the elbow amputation. So now we can use and measure muscle activity in that arm to then control the movement of this prosthetic arm. That's like a really good example of using, you know, the residual healthy, functioning, you know, muscles and bones to control this new device that is going to aid us in our movement. So, the injuries and the types of different things do matter, and it is something you have to consider, and that's considering the individual. You know, it's not quite the so-called injury, especially in the one we've talked about today, cerebral palsy, it looks so different for everyone, it is tough to say, like, here's a device that'll help people with cerebral palsy. It's more here's a device that will help people with this movement deficit they have, really, they have a lot of problem with foot drop, which you may have heard of. But who else has problem with foot drop is individuals that have had a stroke. So this device could also be used in individuals who've previously had a stroke and help them move. So really, you have to look at the individual, the deficit of the movement that they're having problems with that they want to get better at, and not so much just like this broad spectrum, here's a device. Let's just shove it on everyone, and surely it'll help. 

  Liz: Right? And this goes back to the human performance, which I love. There's something that says this human, because the human experience gets encapsulated here. And so much of my work, as I talk with more people, it really feels like now, like the current era of science that we live in, is that it is truly convergent science, interdisciplinary, and getting closer and closer to this idea that having one solution that could help everyone is not possible because how challenges arise and how people experience things. And it seems like this is also an example of really needing to integrate what we know about people. Where are they doing, where their lived experiences, and what do they want to get out of something is just as important to the therapeutic solution as understanding what the problem is, or at least if you know the first order approximation, which is, I can't walk, or I can't walk for long, and it makes it harder, but also makes it, I think, more rewarding, maybe. 

  Colin: I agree it does make it maybe harder, because you can't just stay in your lab, in your silo, and do all the things that you got taught and you learned how to do, and you know how to do these things, and I'm going to stay in my lane, you know. But sometimes you do have to swerve out of your lane, and you have to reach across and ask for - the hardest thing is asking for help, because you don't know how to do it, right? I don't know how to do, you know, a lot of these things. I don't truly know how to solder these electrical circuits up to the outer skeleton. I don't know how to do that, right? I have to ask for help. I don't know how to create this different controller in this teensy computer circuit, like I had to ask for help. And it, you know, takes a long time to get to that point, because when you come up through academia, you don't know anything, and then you finally know something, and you're so proud of knowing something that it's uncomfortable to get back in that space of where, all right, again I don't know anything. But I think you're right in saying it does truly feel like we're getting closer to the transdisciplinary, it just you see more and more of it. You see the work that's going on. You know, it's not just about, well, let's just study nutrition and see, you know what people's, you know, urine tests like, it's like, well, how does this affect this? And how does this affect this? 

  Liz: We're all eating the same thing, and they seem- and I'm gaining weight, and that person's losing weight, you're gaining muscle, I'm losing muscle, but I promise you, I'm eating exactly what you told me to eat when you told me to eat it, right? Yeah, I'd seen that, and I totally it totally resonates about the feeling like you've learned so much and you still don't know enough, or there's something else you need to learn, and just how to have a conversation and how much you need to learn before you feel like you can actually perform the science, do the research that you're trying to do. Like you have a great research question, and you know it's a good one, and you understand why, you know you have the background to understand why, but what you don't always have is the full background of how to do it, or, like, actually doing it. And it takes the team to do that and getting over this idea that you have to- the insecurity to feel like you're supposed to know how to do everything and be like the ultimate. You're supposed to be the Wikipedia on your research project, like there's no way we can be the internet or like everyone, but it feels like we should. 

  Colin: Yeah, it is tough. And I'd even say in our industry partners, like the people building the technology to help us, like, the, you know, I'm using fNIRs Right now, which is a way to measure brain activity, you know, I don't know everything about fNIRs, but our industry partners are, like, so good now, of walking you through it, here's how the technology works, here's how it's developed, here's what we're doing. Here is what you can do to change it. And so, it really is. It's getting to be a really, really big team that's working together. 

  Liz: What motivates you to keep doing this work? Why are you so passionate about this research that you do?  

  Colin: Yeah, what motivates me is one: the understanding, just like truly answering questions that no one else knows right now, and being a part of, you know, and the part I can answer compared to- is very, very, very small, but I can try and answer some of these things, and it's so fun starting a research project and not knowing what the end is going to look like, you know, it's just true hypothesis-driven research, like all these other researchers standing on the shoulders of giants, you know, have shown this much, you know, and this should happen in this case, that's what we think. And then you do the research, and it's like, it's not what happened. It's just really fun to see what happens at the end. And I find that incredibly motivating. Every day you get to work with some of the smartest, the brightest, you know, the most - the work stamina that some of these researchers have. You know, I'm definitely not the smartest person- 

  Liz: No, No, you’re the smartest person. You've got to say it. 

  Colin: Really with the scientists, there is little hubris, like no one thinks they're better than everyone else. You know, we're all pretty levelheaded people, which is a fun environment to work in. And then the truth, you know, finally, then you get to the translation, and you see a little bit of your science get into a non-science world. It's so fun to see, like I see, I started out doing a lot of running research. I helped people after an ACL injury. How can they, you know, run longer without injury, and kind of protect their knees. And I saw some of my science get into the real world, as we say, and it's just so nice to see it, you know, break out of academia and really do make a change in the world. And talking to some of the participants who have been a part of when we had those exoskeletons, and the parents, and they're so excited using it, and they say how much it's improved their day to day, and not just their mobility, but just their joy, their happiness, their bit of life and, like, it's easy to work on those days. 

  Liz: Yeah, you get to see a lot of patients, a lot of everyday people in your work. I guess you're also, what I'm hearing from you is that it's really great to work at HPNRI, Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute, right? What is it like working in an institute? 

  Colin: Yeah, we were talking about, you know, translating research a little more. It's like transdisciplinary trying to get to that point. We've all fought to get there, and this is an institute that's built to do this. So I have expertise in a couple different areas, and we have incredible researchers at Oklahoma State University that maybe need a little help on this little project. As an institute, we can, you know, provide that to help these projects, you know, get further along a little faster, get out to the world quicker. But also, we're really working to translate the science and get it out of the academic world. So we have great collaborators in the vet med school. So, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and they study mice, they study horses, and they have incredible research going on and showing through animal models what's possible. But they don't have human participant skills. You know, they've never worked with something that can talk back, and it's like, all right, let's collaborate. Come to us, I do have those skills, I don't have your skills, but let's collaborate on that. And being a little bit separate from the you know, the OSU as academia and being our own institution puts us in a really good space to bridge that gap, to get it to, you know, clinical to get it to clinicians, to get it to doctors, to get it to, you know, just your everyday individuals. So, we're really positioned to do that. And I can't wait to see what we are soon to do in the future. 

  Liz: Yeah, I can't wait to hear more of these success stories coming out, you mentioned this translational impact. And I kind of wanted to go back to this. You mentioned that you got to see a little bit of how your research and running was really helping people. Could you share what that was? What was like that getting to see the real world impact for you? 

  Colin: Yeah, I went to school with some physical therapists. I was doing a PhD. They were doing their DPT, and so they kind of knew what I did, knew what we did, and then we, you know, went around our lives. But I saw that they were, you know, training in a gym using some of the research that was like disseminating some of that knowledge that came from my research. I was like, dang, it really did.  It really is out there, which is- 

  Liz: They really listened to me.  

  Colin: Yeah. 

  Liz: Okay, no, first of all, like this is, I'm so glad you said that, because I frequently think about when I was a graduate student, and even though I wasn't in tissue engineering or biomechanics, I was in more, actually, still neuroscience imaging, but then some drug delivery, but it was talking with my other lab mates or other classmates, like who in other labs and just those late night conversations, or having to go to all their poster sessions or journal clubs or hearing their research talks that I learned things that I still incorporate now, even though I never did the studies myself, but I'm like, ah, I remember that this was a challenge. I saw someone struggle with this for like four years. You know, in that you remember that, and that so much of your experience, and also for students or other people thinking, this is also why it's important to go with those seminar sessions and your that your faculty may offer, or just learning by osmosis and just listening and paying attention and really, it really forms who you are as a scientist and as someone who's just pulling together different experiences to make your own now, experience as a professional much more rich. 

  Colin: Yeah. Literally, just the other day, I was at a we got a new piece of equipment in a different lab, and they invited me to come see the equipment and see how it's used and trained on it. And there I was talking to one of the PIs in the in their lab, and he is kind of like cardiovascular muscle oxidization, big on blood flow to the muscles, how it happened. And he was telling me some of the theories that are like the classics in that realm, and it was so close to the theories in my realm. And we're just like, dang, you guys are, again, coming at it in different ways. But neither of us have ever heard, you know, we're not that far apart- a little apart. And then we, you know, talk about dang, we could really put together a really cool, broad study and just, you know, being around people thinking somewhat similar things. It's yeah- every day is a learning experience. 

  Liz: Yeah, I love this. I mean, I love learning about this. I think that is one of the big things I enjoy at my job, being able to think and learn and grow and change, but just also feel like I'm making an impact, that something I do matters to other people, makes it feel worth it.  

  [Music Break] 

  Liz: So, before we leave, there's this final thing we want to do. This is part of what BMES is doing in general, where they are making a campaign about what a world without biomedical engineering would be like. So, I want you to think about BME. Biomedical Engineering is so important. It's so infused into how we treat people in healthcare and how we walk, how we go about our daily lives. And so, if we were to get rid of biomedical engineering, what would that world even be? What would that look like?  

  Colin: Phew.  

  Liz: And I think you know, for you and for your research, your context, how you would see it. 

  Colin: Yeah, without biomedical engineering. I mean, I think our rehab techniques and the way we think about- in my research, the way we move, would still be very observational. It would be, you know, someone comes in with an amputation, or a car wreck or whatever, and it would still be like, well, let's try this, and, oh, let's try this. And that didn't work. Let's try this. Let's try this. And what we would be trying would also be not great. You know, if we didn't have this, and again, I'll go back to using the term hard science of engineering, designing these things in a very specific manner that is written out nicely, that can be replicated and tweaked for different things, it would be tough to progress in our rehab and back to our performance. You know, it would be difficult to perform as someone that's, you know, different than the able-bodied individuals as it's known in the literature. Look at now our Olympic athletes, our Paralympic athletes, like they are incredibly good at what they do. And you know, this all comes from, like designing some of these assistive devices and adaptive devices, and then, so not only performance, but also, you know, these individuals be living a much different life and probably not being able to participate in some of the things they really wanted to. And so without BME, it would be tough. It would look different.  

  Liz: It will look a lot different. Thank you.  

  Colin: Yeah, you bet.  

  Liz: Is there anything you're looking forward to in the coming year or five years in the field?  

  Colin: In the field? Yeah. I mean, I think some of our basic science, basic science being those who do like benchtop science, look at cells and microscopes, kind of your classic science, which you think of. It's like it's progressing so fast and getting into our field so fast that, like some of these new papers I am reading about gene editing and different things, it's crazy right now, like we're really doing some, I mean, phenomenal work that I think we'll, we'll see in the next few years, you know, kind of how - and this is kind of, you know, gene engineering, cell engineering, and that kind of engineering. It's really getting good, and it's getting fast. I'm excited to see how that advances, and then how that incorporates, you know, into, kind of our fields, and then obviously, the big keywords, AI, am I excited? Am I scared? A little of both. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think healthy fear is good. And I mean, we all can see how it can help in so many ways. You know, you just always hope there's someone smart enough, or some smart people out there, smarter than you, that know how to use this in appropriate manners, and that's what I'm hoping for. 

  Liz: I'm with you. I think AI is, it's powerful when it's a tool, and it feels terrifying, because if it ever leaves that tool position and becomes more of a replacement, I think there's, yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty about whether it is something we can manage and control. 

  Colin: Well, let's go back to our reliance example, like, is this something that's a tool, or is this something that, like we have to have it? I can't do anything without AI, and then if and then I need more and more and more, because I'm losing these skills, and now I'm so reliant on this one device, this assistive technology that, you know, it gets worrisome, it gets taken away, or we all know they can hallucinate, and you kind of go down that, and then, then it does get not so helpful.  

  Liz: I love that you said that. That was great, and you tied it right back in. Colin, Dr. Bowersock. It has been so amazing to have you on the podcast. I have learned so much, and I actually feel hopeful about the future and about if I ever need a technology like this. You know, I'm going to go to Oklahoma. 

  Colin: You come on down. We'll have you and we'll help you out. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you having me on. 

  Liz: Thank you so much. That's our show today. Thank you guys for tuning in. I had a really fun conversation this time. I learned so much, and I can't wait to report back to my dad and talk about all the new advancements that are happening. So, if you have questions or ideas for a podcast episode, just email us. Our email address is communications@bmes.org you can also find out more information about when we're releasing podcast episodes, or find out more information from our speakers by following us on our socials at BMES Society, and our website details are bmes.org/podcast/officehours. So, we look forward to hearing from you, and hopefully we might see one of you on the podcast! 

  
  
  
  

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