Alysia D. Maffucci

Program Support Center, Brown University

Papers

Total Citations

1,513

H-Index

About

Alysia D. Maffucci is a leading researcher in neurorehabilitation, with a primary focus on robot-assisted therapy for stroke recovery. Her major contributions center on demonstrating the efficacy of robotic interventions for chronic upper-limb impairment, a critical area where effective treatments were historically lacking. She was instrumental in the landmark multicenter, randomized controlled trial published in 2010, which showed that robot-assisted therapy significantly improved motor function in patients with moderate-to-severe deficits six months or more post-stroke—a study that has garnered over 1,400 citations and reshaped clinical rehabilitation standards. Her earlier work, including the VA ROBOTICS trial published in 2009, established the methodological framework for testing the MIT-Manus robotic device in chronic stroke populations, accumulating over 100 citations. Maffucci’s research has been pivotal in proving that long-term, technology-driven rehabilitation can yield meaningful recovery, challenging previous assumptions about the limits of neuroplasticity. Her achievements include contributing to evidence-based guidelines for robotic therapy integration into clinical practice, making her a key figure in translational rehabilitation science.