Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering

The Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering (CRE) has been active in fundamental and applied research into the application of engineering technology within spinal cord injury medicine for many years. The CRE is part of the Biomedical Engineering Research Division at the School of Engineering. It is a founding member of the Scottish Centre for Innovation in Spinal Cord Injury and has a close and long-standing research partnership with the Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit (QENSIU) at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital.

The research at the CRE is primarily focused on using engineering technology to improve the health and quality of life of people with a spinal cord injury. Our activities range from investigations into the fundamental principles of balance control and the modelling of bone and muscle, over clinical applications such as abdominal muscle stimulation for cough and respiratory function in tetraplegia, to the development and evaluation of systems to allow functional training and exercise for people with spinal cord injury, using lower-limb paraplegic cycling, assisted arm-cranking and active treadmill therapy with robotic assistance. Emerging fields of research include the use of brain-computer interface technology in combination with virtual reality in neuro-rehabilitation and pain therapy.