Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute is pleased to welcome Michael Dryzer, PhD, as a new postdoctoral research fellow in the Cognitive-Motor Learning Laboratory, directed by Aaron Wong, PhD. At the Institute, Dr. Dryzer’s research will focus on Parkinson’s disease, motor habit formation, and automaticity.
Dr. Dryzer is a biomedical engineer with a background in behavioral neuroscience and neuroeconomics. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from Elon University, where his undergraduate research investigated the use of electroporation to deactivate parasitic worm eggs in wastewater. This work contributed to the development of a prototype sanitation technology and resulted in multiple peer-reviewed publications.
He went on to earn his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University under the mentorship of Vikram Chib, PhD. Dr. Dryzer’s doctoral research examined how fatigue influences perceptions of physical effort and effort-based decision-making. In one line of research, he developed an experimental paradigm that combined cognitive fatigue, physical effort-based choices, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how fatigue alters neural representations of effort. His work identified brain activity associated with cognitive fatigue and the subjective cost of physical effort, and he examined how these signals interact.
Another major focus of Dr. Dryzer’s graduate research was understanding perceptions of physical effort in people with multiple sclerosis. He led research examining differences in force production and effort perception between people with multiple sclerosis and healthy participants. This work demonstrated that variability in exertion increased with disease severity and may represent a useful behavioral marker of disease-related changes in multiple sclerosis.
After completing his PhD, Dr. Dryzer remained at Johns Hopkins as a postdoctoral research fellow. While there, he helped lead a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical experiment investigating the effects of low-dose ketamine infusions on motor performance, subjective fatigue, and quality of life in people with multiple sclerosis. Across his research, Dr. Dryzer has used fMRI, isometric force paradigms, computational modeling, and advanced statistical methods to investigate how people perceive effort and how these perceptions influence motor behavior.
Outside of his research, Dr. Dryzer is committed to patient advocacy, science communication, and accessible science. He has engaged with organizations that support research and families affected by autism spectrum disorders and rare genetic diseases, including the Autism Science Foundation, MED13L Foundation, CSNK2A1 Foundation, and the Orphan Disease Center at the University of Pennsylvania. During his doctoral training at Johns Hopkins, he founded the Sci’more Podcast, a science communication platform managed by graduate students and early-career scientists. He has also contributed to several science-focused blogs, including the Biomedical Odyssey Blog at Johns Hopkins, the CSNK2A1 Foundation’s blog, and the MicroSCOPE Blog.
At our Institute, Dr. Dryzer will gain additional research experience and skills under the mentorship of Dr. Wong. His broader career interests center on the intersection of rigorous scientific research, patient advocacy, and translational impact. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Dryzer to Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute!