Contact
Assistant Clinical Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Surgery Dept
- afsharip@ualberta.ca
- Availability
- Available for research collaborations in clinical neurophysiology, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, high-density surface EMG, movement disorders, and neural signal analysis. Student research opportunities may be available depending on project fit, supervision capacity, and departmental requirements.
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
Clinical Neurophysiology Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring High-Density Surface Electromyography Deep Brain Stimulation Parkinson’s Disease Human Motor Control Neural Signal Processing Neuromuscular Impairment Rehabilitation Engineering Surface EMG
About
Dr. Babak Afsharipour is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta. He is also a neurophysiologist with Alberta Health Services, where his clinical work focuses on intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring during surgical procedures.
Dr. Afsharipour’s academic background bridges clinical neurophysiology, biomedical engineering, and translational neuroscience. His work focuses on quantitative assessment of human motor control and neuromuscular function using electrophysiological and computational methods, with particular expertise in high-density surface electromyography, neural signal processing, deep brain stimulation, and motor impairment in neurological conditions.
He completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, followed by postdoctoral research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Northwestern University, and later at the University of Alberta. His research and clinical experience include high-density surface EMG, Parkinson’s disease, deep brain stimulation, stroke, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, and intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring.
Research
Dr. Afsharipour’s research focuses on clinical and translational neurophysiology, with an emphasis on quantitative assessment of neuromuscular function and neural signal analysis.
His current research includes the study of dopaminergic and deep brain stimulation modulation of muscular torque variability in Parkinson’s disease, neurophysiological signal analysis during deep brain stimulation surgery, blink-reflex responses in trigeminal neuralgia, and the application of high-density surface EMG in neuroscience, rehabilitation, and clinical neurophysiology.
His broader research interests include intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, human motor control, motor unit behaviour, neuromuscular impairment, surface electromyography, rehabilitation engineering, and computational analysis of neural and electrophysiological signals.
Teaching
Dr. Afsharipour has contributed to teaching at the University of Alberta as a guest lecturer in courses related to computational neuroscience, human motion biomechanics, and rehabilitation engineering.
His previous University of Alberta teaching contributions include NEURO 496: Computational Neuroscience, MEC E 788: Advanced Topics in Solid Mechanics I - Human Motion Biomechanics, and BME 553: Rehabilitation Engineering: Assisted Movement after Injury.
His teaching interests include clinical neurophysiology, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, surface electromyography, neural signal processing, human motor control, rehabilitation engineering, and translational neuroscience.
Featured Publications
Roy FD, Afsharipour B, King A, Waldron M, Ba F, Shetty A, Sankar T.
Operative Neurosurgery. 2025 July; 10.1227/ons.0000000000001708
Yacyshyn AF, Mohammadalinejad G, Afsharipour B, Duchcherer J, Bashuk J, Bennett DJ, Gorassini MA.
Journal of Neurophysiology. 2025 March; 10.1152/jn.00505.2024
Ghazaleh Mohammadalinejad, Babak Afsharipour, Alex Yacyshyn, Jennifer Duchcherer, Jack Bashuk, Erin Bennett, Gregory E. P. Pearcey, Francesco Negro, Katharina A. Quinlan, David J. Bennett, Monica A. Gorassini
The Journal of Physiology. 2024 May; 10.1113/JP285756
Gregory E P Pearcey, Babak Afsharipour, Aleš Holobar, Milap S Sandhu, W Zev Rymer
2023 May; 10.1101/2023.05.22.23290235
Babak Afsharipour, Gregory EP Pearcey, W Zev Rymer, Milap S Sandhu
2022 August; 10.1101/2022.08.23.22278497
Sourav Chandra, Jinghua Li, Babak Afsharipour, Andres F. Cardona, Nina L. Suresh, Limei Tian, Yujun Deng, Yishan Zhong, Zhaoqian Xie, Haixu Shen, Yonggang Huang, John A. Rogers, William Z. Rymer
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. 2021 April; 10.1109/TBME.2020.3032354
Babak Afsharipour, Sourav Chandra, Guijin Li, William Z. Rymer, Nina L. Suresh
IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. 2020 July; 10.1109/TNSRE.2020.2997213
Afsharipour B, Manzur N, Duchcherer J, Fenrich KF, Thompson CK, Negro F, Quinlan K, Bennett DJ, Gorassini MA
Journal of Neurophysiology. 2020 May; 10.1152/jn.00194.2020
B. Afsharipour, S. Soedirdjo, R. Merletti
Biomedical Signal Processing and Control. 2019 March; 10.1016/j.bspc.2018.12.001
Babak Afsharipour, Francesco Petracca, Mauro Gasparini, Roberto Merletti
Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology. 2016 December; 10.1016/j.jelekin.2016.10.003
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