Robyn Mildren
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering (CBN Associate)Two Partners Place 123A
robyn dot mildren at ou dot edu
Ph.D., Kinesiology - University of British Columbia, 2020Research:
Our lab's research focuses on neuroengineering approaches to understand and modulate activity in the nervous system, with an emphasis on somatosensory and vestibular circuits underlying motor and postural control. Using high-density electrophysiology, we record and microstimulate neural populations in the brain and peripheral nerves to characterize how sensory information is encoded and integrated, providing insight into the fundamental physiology of sensorimotor pathways. Building on this foundation, we develop neuromodulation approaches that aim to restore sensorimotor function through targeted microstimulation, translating these insights across pre-clinical and human models.
Selected Publications:
Mildren, R. L. and Cullen, K. E. (2026) Ground-truth encoding of self-motion in the primate cerebellar nodulus and uvula. Nature Communications 17: 3166.
Mildren, R. L. and Cullen, K. E. (2025) Sensorimotor transformations for postural control in the vermis of the cerebellum. Journal of Neuroscience 45: e0249252025.
Bao, C., Mildren, R. L., Charles, A. S., and Cullen, K. E. (2026) CUSP: Complex spike sorting from multi-electrode array recordings with U-net sequence-to-sequence prediction. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 426: 110631.
Mildren, R. L., Gómez, L. J., and Cullen, K. E. (2025) Convergence of vestibular and proprioceptive signals in the cerebellar nodulus/uvula enhances the encoding of self-motion in primates. Current Biology 35:468-482.e3.
Mildren, R. L. and Cullen, K. E. (2023) Vestibular contributions to primate neck postural muscle activity during natural motion. Journal of Neuroscience 43: 2326-2337.
Mildren, R. L., Peters, R. M., Carpenter, M. G., Blouin, J. S., and Inglis, J. T. (2021) Soleus responses to Achilles tendon stimuli are suppressed by heel and enhanced by metatarsal cutaneous stimuli during standing. Journal of Physiology 599: 3611-3625.
Mildren, R. L., Schmidt, M. E., Eschelmuller, G., Carpenter, M. G., Blouin, J. S., and Inglis, J. T. (2020) Influence of age on the frequency characteristics of the soleus muscle response to Achilles tendon vibration during standing. Journal of Physiology 598: 5231-5243.
Mildren, R. L., Peters, R. M., Carpenter, M. G., Blouin, J. S., and Inglis, J. T. (2019) Soleus single motor units show stronger coherence with Achilles tendon vibration across a broad bandwidth relative to medial gastrocnemius units while standing. Journal of Neurophysiology 122: 2119-2129.
Mildren, R. L., Zaback, M., Adkin, A. L., Bent, L. R., and Frank, J. S. (2018) Learning to balance on a slackline: Development of coordinated multi-joint synergies. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 28: 1996-2008.
Mildren, R. L., Yip, M. C., Lowrey, C. R., Harpur, C., Brown, S. H. M., and Bent, L. R. (2017) Ageing reduces light touch and vibrotactile sensitivity on the anterior lower leg and foot dorsum. Experimental Gerontology 99: 1-6.