Dane Donegan

Dane Donegan is a Bridge Fellow and PostDoc at the RELab. He is working on the development of a closed-loop non-invasive brain stimulation device for stroke rehabilitation.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Dane received his B.Sc. in biochemistry at the University of British Columbia in 2016 and his M.Sc. degree in Modern Human Anatomy at the University of Colorado Anschutz in 2018. His master’s thesis assessed the neural circuitry of vagus nerve stimulation during forelimb movements in mice. His research led to the characterization of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons being rapidly recruited during vagus nerve stimulation, and influence motor learning.

He defended his PhD in the Neurobehavioral Dynamics Laboratory at ETH Zurich in August 2022, where he assessed the role of hypothalamic orexin neurons in complex forelimb movements in mice. In collaboration with RELab, he developed a novel rodent paradigm utilizing the ETH Pattus, a robotic manipulandum, to assess sensory-motor adaptation. Through neural recordings and closed-loop optogenetics, he found hypothalamic orexin neurons have distinct pre-motor and motor signals that influence learning novel motor tasks.

Dane’s interests lie in developing novel and accessible technologies for neurological diseases that work on the timescales of the brain.