Reeve Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board: Cristin Welle, Ph.D.
As the daughter of a pastor and a therapist, Cristin Welle, Ph.D., grew up with a little bit of analysis and a lot of love. Her parents encouraged her to pursue her passions, and from an early age, Welle was fascinated with the brain.
“Just a couple of years ago, I found an assignment I completed in 5th grade with the question, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’” Welle says. “I wrote ‘I want to study the brain,’” Welle says. That interest faded during her formative years, and she decided to study art. But when she took a neurodevelopment class during college, she rediscovered her love of biology and the brain and changed her major to neuroscience.
Today Welle is a systems neurophysiologist who focuses on the interaction between medical devices and the nervous system. The goal: To understand how devices interact with the nervous system and with the brain to maximize the long-term safety and performance of those devices.
Shaping a Career
On the heels of that neurodevelopment class, Welle took several science classes, then went to graduate school for neuroscience. She completed her Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of Pennsylvania, then began the Neural Interfaces Program at the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Science and Engineering Lab.
“I wanted to understand how the insights I was uncovering about the brain could be used to help patients,” says Welle. “Our primary focus was studying brain-computer interface technologies, where doctors implant minuscule electrodes into the brain to help patients with tetraplegia from spinal cord injury and other causes interact with their environment.”
Welle’s unique role at the FDA allowed her to serve as a sort of liaison between the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and the NIH, encouraging communication across the government agencies to benefit patients with myriad brain and nervous system deficits.
“I served as a consulting scientific reviewer and that process gave me a big-picture view of the neurotechnology development ecosystem,” Welle says. “It was an amazing experience that really shaped my career.”
After five years at the FDA, Welle transitioned back to academic research, accepting a position as Vice Chair of research at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus in the Department of Neurosurgery and Physiology.
Focusing on the Vagus Nerve
Welle’s lab studies the use of neurotechnology to support patients suffering from conditions that affect the nervous system, from multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, working to understand how the brain responds and reacts.
“We want to pilot new technologies, but also understand how these devices interact with the nervous system, particularly to drive plasticity to help the motor rehabilitation,” Welle says. So instead of focusing directly on spinal cord injury, for example, Welle’s lab has been looking at neural technologies more generally.
One promising area: Vagus nerve stimulation. By stimulating the vagus nerve, scientists can activate the parasympathetic system, which signals the body to relax. “Tapping into the vagus nerve can reduce anxiety and inflammation, but it can also drive plasticity and enhance rehabilitation in the brain and spinal cord,” Welle says.
In fact, the primary role of the vagus nerve is to feed your brain information about your body to enhance learning and memory. So when you think about spinal cord injury, stimulating the vagus nerve may help reestablish connection in the brain and spinal cord and improve functional recovery. Welle’s work, for example, is looking to use vagus nerve stimulation to promote the myelination and functional recovery in patients with multiple sclerosis.
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Inspiring the Next Generation of Neuroscientists
Welle’s role at the FDA gave her a behind-the-scenes view of neurotechnology translation, particularly as it relates to FDA approvals and regulations. And as a member of the NIH study section that reviews applications to develop new neurotechnology, she’s eager to hear from young scientists who are masterminding neuro devices.
To that end, Welle and three of her colleagues received an NIH grant to develop a curriculum on neurotechnology called “NeuroTech Course.” “The curriculum is completely free to anyone who is interested in developing new neurotechnology to treat a medical condition,” Welle says. “The course includes a series of online lectures from experts across the scientific spectrum from preclinical to clinical to commercialization and venture capital.”
Welle and her team also host annual workshops with hands-on exercises to help people learn the skills they need to translate neurotechnology. While most students hail from academia, the NeuroTech course also attracts people from industry and government.
“The number of applications the FDA receives for new neurotechnology has tripled over the past 15 years,” Welle says. “While some of these devices can be intimidating at first, they have the potential to tap into your nervous system in ways that drugs can't because they allow you to target the right parts of the nervous system at the right time to really speak the language of the brain.”
Welle’s preclinical models suggest that neurotech solutions not only speak the language of the brain, but also have the potential to access the brain’s own healing power. “With these devices, you’re talking to the brain, you’re speaking the language of the brain, and you're helping the nervous system to heal itself,” she says.
Dr. Welle is part of our newly launched Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. It is comprised of senior and junior investigators from across the globe and in numerous scientific sectors and serves as a sounding board for the Foundation, offering innovative ideas and honest feedback as we search for the most promising research and development opportunities that will provide the greatest impact for community members.