Dr. W. Geoffrey Wright, PhD

Assistant Professor

3307 North Broad Street

Jones Hall, Room 606

Philadelphia, PA 19140

Alt. Phone: 215-204-5152

Fax: 215-707-7500

215-707-9519

william.geoffrey.wright@temple.edu

Biography

After receiving a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech. Dr. Wright spent 4 years as an officer in the USAF doing satellite engineering and operations. He then redirected his interests from hardware-in-space to humans-in-space in graduate school. His masters research (Experimental Psychology, Northeastern University, 1997) and Ph.D. research (Cognitive Neuroscience, Brandeis University, 2002) focused on human perception of spatial orientation with support from NASA and the DoD. During his post- doctoral training in Munich, Germany and at OHSU in Portland, OR, he began working with various patient populations, including stroke, Parkinson's disease, vestibular loss, and neuropathy. He has investigated motor control, gait and balance, and perceptuo-motor disorders in both healthy and impaired individuals.

Dr. Wright's research goals at Temple are to continue studying the central nervous system in individuals with impairment to motor control, balance, and gait, with the intention of applying knowledge about sensorimotor integration to shaping rehabilitation therapy. Specifically, one line of research involves the work he has done using virtual environments (VE) to manipulate visual input. By applying VE techniques to rehabilitation he hopes to evaluate VE immersion on balance and motor behavior and assess ways to benefit individuals with impairment. He is also doing VA funded research on Parkinson's Disease, which investigates the neuromuscular origins of hypertonia using postural control and functional MRI prodecures.

Course Involvement

Neuroscience

Movement Science III

Gross Anatomy

Critical Inquiry I

Movement Science Seminar: Cognition and Motor Learning (PhD)

Publications/Presentations

Wright WG (2009), Linear vection in virtual environments can be strengthened by discordant inertial input, IEEE EMBC, pp. 1157-60.

Wright WG, Schneider E (2009), Manual motor control during virtual self-motion: Implications for VR rehabilitation, IEEE Virtual Rehabilitation Conference, pp.166-172.

Wright WG, Schneider E, Glasauer S (2009). Compensatory motor responses of object-wielding during combined linear visual and physical roll tilt stimulation, Exp Brain Res. 192:683-694.

Cordo PJ , Lutsep, H, Cordo L, Wright WG, Cacciatore, TC, Skoss, R (2009). Assisted Movement with Enhanced Sensation (AMES): Coupling Motor and Sensory to Remediate Motor Deficits in Chronic Stroke Patients, Neurorehabil Neural Repair, 23(1):67-77.

Wright WG, Gurfinkel VS, Nutt J, Horak F, Cordo PJ (2007). Axial hypertonicity in Parkinson's disease: Direct measurements of trunk and hip torque. Exp Neurol. 208(1):38-46.

Wright WG, Horak F (2007). Interaction of posture and conscious perception of gravitational vertical and surface horizontal. Exp Brain Res. 182(3):321-32.

Wright WG, Gurfinkel VS, King L, Horak F (2007). Parkinson's disease shows perceptuomotor asymmetry unrelated to motor symptoms. Neurosci Lett 417(1):10-15.

Wright WG, DiZio P, Lackner JR. (2006). Apparent self-motion in two visual contexts: Dissociable mechanisms underlie perception. J Vest Res 16:23-28.

Wright WG, Glasauer S. (2006) Subjective somatosensory vertical during dynamic tilt is dependent on task, inertial condition, and multisensory concordance. Exp Brain Res 172(3): 310-321.

Ivanenko YP, Wright WG, Gurfinkel VS, Horak FB, Cordo PJ (2006) Interaction of involuntary post-contraction activity with locomotor movements. Exp Brain Res 169(2):255-60.

Wright WG, DiZio P, Lackner JR. (2005) Vertical linear self-motion perception during virtual visual and inertial stimulation: More than weighted summation of sensory inputs. J Vest Res 15(4): 185-195.

Wright WG, Glasauer S (2003). Haptic subjective vertical shows context dependence: Task and vision play a role during dynamic tilt stimulation. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1004: 531-5.

Bryant DJ, Wright WG (1999). How body asymmetries determine accessibility in spatial frameworks. Q J Exp Psych, 52 (2):487-508.

Grants & Contracts

VAMC Stars and Stripes Seed Grant - Tonic Neuromuscular Processes in Healthy Elderly and Parkinson's Disease

Faculty Senate Seed Grant - Visual Vestibular Processing in Virtual Reality

Research

Dr. Wright's research goals at Temple are to continue studying the central nervous system in individuals with impairment to motor control, balance, and gait, with the intention of applying knowledge about sensorimotor integration in the central nervous system to shaping rehabilitation therapy. Specifically, one line of research involves the work he has done using virtual environments (VE) to manipulate visual input. By applying VE techniques to rehabilitation he hopes to evaluate VE immersion on balance and motor behavior and assess ways to benefit individuals with impairment.