Douglas McCreery

Doug McCreery attended the University of Connecticut, and received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduating, he worked for the US Navy before returning to the University of Connecticut, where received his Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering. He completed his post-doctoral studies in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota School of medicine in Minneapolis, before coming to HMRI in 1979. His research interests include the development of neuroprostheses and devices for neuromodulation for the central nervous system, and the effects of electrical stimulation on the tissues of the central and peripheral nervous systems.

In June of 2001, he became the Director of HMRI’s Neural Engineering program.  He participated in the development of the vagus nerve stimulating electrode which has helped more than 30,000 people afflicted with epilepsy. The research conducted by Doug and his colleagues have has been instrumental to defining procedures and criteria for safe therapeutic electrical stimulation of neural tissue, and these data have been used by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to certify several implantable medical devices, including the deep brain stimulator manufactured by Medtronic, Inc., which has been implanted into more than 50,000 patients for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease.

In the past few years, Doug and his colleagues in the Neural Engineering program have emphasized the design and development of systems for microstimulation of the brain and spinal cord. This technology, which entails implanting microelectrodes directly into the neural tissue, provides a means of accessing the fine organizational structure of the brain and spinal cord.

Since joining HMRI, Doug has been the principal Investigator or co-principal investigator of 18 research grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health. He is the principal author or a co-author of 62 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 7 book chapters.