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Multimodal Biomarkers in Pediatric Neurologic Disease

Coulter Center for Translational Research, University of Virginia

Combining wearable sensing with advanced imaging and clinical measures to develop new ways of characterizing motor function and disease progression in pediatric neurologic disease.

Overview showing skeletal trajectories, wearable sensing, and ultrasound biomarkers
Overview of the multimodal pipeline for characterizing upper-limb neuromuscular disease progression from skeletal trajectories, wearable and ultrasound biomarkers.

Description

Children with neurologic and neuromuscular diseases can experience changes in motor function that are difficult to capture through periodic clinical assessments alone. Our research develops novel multimodal biomarkers for pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS), spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), bringing together complementary measures of function and underlying disease. Wearable sensors characterize movement and motor function in the clinic and everyday life; ultrasound provides measures of muscle structure and tissue characteristics in SMA and DMD; and neuroimaging provides measures of central nervous system injury in POMS. By examining these measures alongside clinical assessments, we aim to develop more sensitive approaches for monitoring motor function and characterizing disease progression over time.

Publications

  • 2026A. Rahman, A. Islam, A. N. McCrady, A. Vistorte Salgado, R. J. Scharf, S. S. Blemker, and L. E. Barnes. Multimodal modeling of skeletal trajectories and ultrasound for predicting upper-limb neuromuscular disease progression. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2026.
  • 2026A. Islam, A. Rahman, A. Vistorte Salgado, R. J. Scharf, S. S. Blemker, and L. E. Barnes. Wearable-based modeling of upper-limb point-to-point movements to estimate severity in neuromuscular disorders. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2026.
  • 2025S. Kumar, A. Rahman, R. Gutierrez, S. Livermon, A. N. McCrady, S. S. Blemker, R. J. Scharf, A. Srivastava, and L. E. Barnes, A shape-based functional index for objective assessment of pediatric motor function. PLOS ONE, 20(10), e0332383, 2025.
  • 2024A. N. McCrady, C. D. Masterson, L. E. Barnes, R. J. Scharf, and S. S. Blemker. Development of an ultrasound-based metric of muscle functional capacity for use in patients with neuromuscular disease. Muscle & Nerve, 70(6), pp.1205-1214. 2024.
  • 2022R. Gutierrez, A. N. McCrady, C. D. Masterson, S. Tolman, M. Boukhechba, L. E. Barnes, S. S. Blemker, R. J. Scharf. Upper Extremity Examination for Neuromuscular Diseases (U-EXTEND): Protocol for a Multimodal Feasibility Study. JMIR Research Protocols, Vol. 11, No. 10, 2022.
  • 2022S. Kumar, R. Gutierezz, D. Datta, S. Tolman, A. McCrady, S. S. Blemker, R. J. Scharf, M. Boukhechba, L. E. Barnes. Shape Analysis for Pediatric Upper Body Motor Function Assessment. Proceedings of the 2022 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 39-43, 2022.

Team

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