SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING AND IMAGING INSTITUTE
at the University of Utah

My real name is Alan Dale Dorval II, but everyone calls me Chuck. I was born and raised in Maine. As a kid I was most interested in math and science, which eventually lead me to engineering. Near the end of my sophomore year in college (1994) I was introduced to Biomedical Engineering and its subdiscipline, Neuroengineering.

Since then, I've spent my professional life engineering approaches to understanding and interfacing with the brain, aiming to improve everyday experiences for people whose neurological conditions may be keeping them from living their best life. I presently run the Utah Neural Modulation & Information Lab; teach a variety of courses in Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience, and Neuroengineering; and keep myself busy with various other tasks in the SCI Institute and the Price College of Engineering, all at the University of Utah.

My interests lie at the intersection where the fields of neural information and neural modulation impact quality of life for people living with neurological conditions. How does the brain process information, on a deeply quantitative level? How is that information processing disrupted by genetic predispositions, environmental factors, infections diseases, or lived experiences? And what sorts of neuromodulatory interventions can restore or replace the brain's information processing skills, to alleviate neurological symptoms?

In particular, our lab explores electrical neuromodulation: a collection of therapies in which electrical stimulation modulates neural tissue activity to alleviate neurological symptoms. While some of these therapies are performed non-invasively, others require chronic implantation of an electrical stimulator -- over a million people are living with embedded electric circuits that regularly stimulate their brain or spinal cord! Though these interventions work quite well in some patients, clinicians and scientists have a very incomplete picture of how or in whom they will alleviate symptoms. We aim to improve and expand these therapies by identifying optimal anatomical targets, understanding their behavioral and physiological responses, leveraging neural feedback to assess their efficacy, and building devices to make neuromodulation less invasive and more therapeutic for a wider range of neurological conditions.