Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Devices
Open Access

John D. Enderle

Biography

Dr. John D. Enderle received the B.S degree in Biomedical Engineering from Suffolk County Community College, Seldon, New York; the M.E. degree in Electrical and Systems Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and the Ph.D degree in Biomedical engineering in 1980 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Research Interest

His primary research thrust throughout most of his career has been the study of muscle mechanics and the oculomotor system, applied to the human visual and auditory systems. This research effort started while he was a Southeastern Center for Electrical Engineering Education Fellow conducting research at Brooks Air Force Base in 1982. He was fortunate to work with his mentor, Dr. Wally Wolfe, who introduced him into that field. The objective of this research is the rigorous development of a homeomorphic neural network (system) whose basic elements rely on interconnected single neuron models and a muscle model to be developed at the sarcomere level. The neural network developed quantitatively describes the role and activity of individual neurons in the neural network, and its topology (connectivity) to reflect known CNS anatomy. The linear muscle model developed by him and his coworkers is the first model to have the static and dynamic characteristics of muscle and corrects errors made by early investigators in the beginning of the 20th century that have persisted into the early 1990s. The neural network model is based on a time-optimal control of saccades and neuron behavior. Recently, he have authored with others a series of papers on a new linear muscle fiber model for neural control of saccades, a neuron-based time-optimal controller of horizontal saccadic eye movements, and a physiological neural controller of a muscle fiber oculomotor plant in horizontal monkey saccades. His current research efforts involve a 3D model of the oculomotor plant and a neural network for visual saccades, auditory saccades and their neural network, a 3D smooth pursuit model for visual and auditory eye movements, and an inexpensive and portable device for the detection and localization of traumatic brain injury.