Some of medicine’s smallest patients can present its biggest imaging challenges. An infant’s heart can be as small as a walnut, beating rapidly inside a body that will change dramatically as the child grows. Yet much of the equipment used in MRI comes in standard sizes better suited to adult bodies, and customized versions can cost thousands of dollars and take months or even years to manufacture.

USC researchers have developed a potential solution: flexible MRI sensors that can be customized to individual patients and 3D-printed in less than 10 minutes for about $30. In testing, the sensors produced roughly four times greater image contrast than standard commercial versions.

“By making customized MRI equipment faster and more affordable to produce, we have the potential to bring better imaging to patients who have traditionally had fewer options, especially infants and children,” said Yasser Khan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, whose lab at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience designs and 3D-prints the customized coils.

Paired with specialized MRI technology at the USC Michelson Center, the sensors can also help capture anatomy in motion, including something as small and fast-moving as a beating heart.

“We’re bringing a level of precision and customization to MRI that isn’t available today,” he said.

A better fit for growing bodies

MRIs use powerful magnets and radio waves to generate signals from inside the body, which a computer then turns into detailed images. Devices called coils act like antennas to pick up those signals, and the closer they fit to the area being scanned, the clearer the image can be.

That makes fit especially important for small patients. A coil designed for an adult may leave gaps when placed around an infant or child, making it harder to capture a strong signal. And because children grow rapidly, equipment that fits at one stage may not fit as well a few years or even months later.

Khan compares the challenge to choosing the right camera lens.

“If you use a large lens to image something very small, you’re not going to get the clearest picture,” Khan said. “But if you can tailor the lens, in this case the MRI coil, to the individual patient, you can capture a much better image.”

The researchers wanted to make a coil that could closely follow the contours of the body rather than leave space between the sensor and the skin. That required rethinking both the material and the way MRI coils are manufactured.

After about three years of experimentation, Khan’s team developed a process for 3D printing conductive silver ink onto a thermoplastic elastomer, a soft, stretchable material with properties similar to human skin. The material can stretch roughly 5% to 10%, allowing the coil to bend and move with the body.

The team tested different flexible materials, plastics and formulations of printable metal before arriving at the combination of silver ink and thermoplastic elastomer. The researchers also had to develop the electronics needed to connect the unconventional coils to an MRI system.

Because the coils begin as digital designs, their dimensions can be changed quickly. A researcher can adjust the size or shape on a computer and print a new coil rather than wait for a specialized part to be manufactured.

“For a growing child, that could mean creating different coils as the body changes,” Khan said. “The goal is to give children access to imaging equipment designed for their bodies, so doctors can get the clearest picture possible as they grow.”

Built and tested under one roof

The technology grew out of the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration the USC Michelson Center was designed to foster, bringing engineers, imaging scientists and clinicians together to tackle complex challenges and accelerate scientific discovery.

In this case, two labs brought complementary expertise to the same problem. 

The Khan Lab specializes in flexible and wearable electronics, including devices that can bend, stretch and conform to the body. 

The Dynamic Imaging Science Center (DISC), led by Krishna Shrinivas Nayak, professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering at USC Viterbi, develops advanced MRI technologies, including methods for capturing the body as it moves.

The DISC Lab is also home to what researchers describe as the only MRI system of its kind in the world, allowing USC scientists to test new technologies and push the boundaries of imaging the body in motion.

Clinical collaborators help connect those capabilities to the needs of patients. John Wood, director of cardiovascular MRI at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and professor of pediatrics and radiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, works with Nayak on some of the most difficult challenges in pediatric imaging, including real-time imaging of the fetal heart. His experience imaging children’s hearts helps inform where new, more adaptable technologies could have the greatest impact.

“We need environments where different ideas can collide,” Khan said. “This project wouldn’t have happened without access to the MRI and conversations with cardiologists, radiologists and imaging scientists. When you bring that expertise together, you can solve problems none of us could solve alone.”

Women live longer than men in nearly every country in the world, yet they experience higher rates of disability, dementia and many other age-related conditions. Scientists have long noted these differences, but they still do not fully understand why they occur — or how that knowledge can be used to improve healthy aging. Understanding these differences could lead to more effective ways to prevent disease, maintain independence and extend healthy life for everyone.

A new $7.5 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health will establish the USC Geroscience Specialized Center of Research Excellence on Sex Differences in Aging (GeroSCORE) to address that challenge.

The award establishes USC’s first NIH Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) and positions the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology as a national leader in advancing research on sex differences in aging.

Funded by the National Institute on Aging in partnership with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, GeroSCORE brings together experts in aging biology, neuroscience, psychology, epidemiology, demography, sociology and data science to understand how biological sex interacts with genetics, hormones, behavior, and social and physical environments to shape aging across the lifespan.

“This center represents exactly the kind of bold, interdisciplinary science needed to address the most important challenges in aging,” said Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Leonard Davis School. “For decades, USC has helped shape the field of geroscience. GeroSCORE builds on that foundation by bringing together outstanding scientists to answer fundamental questions about aging while creating new opportunities for collaboration, innovation and scientific leadership.”

Building the future of aging research

Although research on sex differences has expanded rapidly in recent years, progress has been slowed by fragmented approaches and a lack of common methods and resources across disciplines.

GeroSCORE was created to help change that.

“We know that women and men age differently; the challenge is understanding why,” said Professor Jennifer Ailshire, UPS Foundation Chair at USC Leonard Davis and one of the center’s directors. “By bringing together expertise that has traditionally been separated, GeroSCORE will help uncover how biology, environment and life experiences combine to shape aging.”

The center will conduct innovative research while also developing new tools, analytical methods and scientific resources that can be shared broadly. It will support pilot projects, train early-career investigators, convene national and international experts, and collaborate across the NIH SCORE network to accelerate discovery.

“The next generation of breakthroughs will come from connecting ideas across disciplines and creating better tools for researchers,” said Teal Eich, associate professor of gerontology and co-director of the center. “Our goal is not only to answer important scientific questions but also to build the frameworks that allow the entire field to move forward.”

The center’s research spans the full spectrum of aging science, from laboratory models to human participants to large population studies:

• Bérénice Benayoun, associate professor of gerontology, will lead a project to investigate how menopause influences brain aging using a novel animal model that more closely reflects the human menopausal transition.
• Teal Eich will combine neuroimaging, cognitive assessments, hormone measures and other biomarkers to examine how biological and neuroendocrine aging contribute to Alzheimer’s disease risk.
• Eric Klopack, adjunct assistant professor of gerontology and assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Indiana University, in collaboration with Ailshire and USC University Professor Eileen Crimmins, will use large population studies to investigate how genetic, environmental and social exposures interact to shape health and aging differently across the life course.

Together, these projects seek to identify the biological and environmental pathways that drive sex differences in aging and reveal new opportunities for prevention and intervention.

A national resource for discovery

Beyond its research program, GeroSCORE will serve as a national resource by developing shared tools, expanding scientific collaboration and training the next generation of researchers studying sex differences in aging.

“Scientific progress depends on more than individual discoveries,” said Crimmins, AARP Chair in Gerontology and GeroSCORE co-director. “It comes from building the methods, collaborations and scientific community that make discovery possible. Our vision is for GeroSCORE to become a national hub that helps shape the future of research on sex differences in aging while improving health and quality of life for generations to come.”

Several years ago, psychiatrist Jennifer Hong was brutally attacked by a patient. The attack deprived her brain of oxygen for almost a minute; the resulting physical and mental health effects were devastating, both professionally and personally.

Now in the last year of her child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) fellowship at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Hong credits the Lifestyle Redesign program at the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy with helping her get her life back on track.

“Because of this program, I have tons of optimism for the future,” Hong says. “Nothing has helped me with my anxiety and my depression and my life more than occupational therapy.”

Lifestyle Redesign is an innovative framework created at USC Chan to coach patients — mostly USC students — to develop daily routines that promote health and wellness.

The program takes a broader interpretation of occupational therapy beyond traditional associations with surgery recovery and workplace optimization.

“Lifestyle Redesign reflects the evolution of occupational therapy from a profession historically associated with rehabilitation to one that also plays a central role in prevention, health promotion and chronic disease management,” says Lindsey Shomer, associate professor of clinical occupational therapy and clinical manager of USC Chan’s OT faculty practice.

Kelly Liao, a USC Chan assistant professor of clinical occupational therapy, says that the way the program is designed expands opportunities for her and her colleagues to help patients like Hong manage their conditions.

“Through the program, we see patients improve their overall self-efficacy, get connected to resources and build up health-promoting habits and routines,” Liao says.

Creating new routines

 The Lifestyle Redesign program was developed through a controlled trial in the 1990s led by former USC Chan faculty member Florence Clark and her research team. The trial evaluated the ability of an OT-based program to prevent disease and improve the health outcomes of older adults through lifestyle changes.

“What makes the Lifestyle Redesign program unique is that we don’t simply teach strategies,” Shomer says. “We partner with clients to develop sustainable habits and routines that are meaningful to them.”

The program’s main office is in the Health Research Association building on the USC Health Sciences Campus. A dedicated team also sees patients at a second clinic within the USC Engemann Student Health Center on the USC University Park Campus. Many clinicians work on a hybrid schedule, offering both in-person and telehealth services.

USC students can schedule a free 20-minute conversation with one of the program’s therapists to learn more about occupational therapy and Lifestyle Redesign.

 Fighting through the fog

Hong says the resulting brain injury from her attack affected her attention, memory and executive functions the worst: She couldn’t remember the alphabet, was easily overwhelmed by tasks and couldn’t hear in crowded rooms. After seeing several therapists, she was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, anxiety and PTSD.

When Hong moved to Los Angeles to begin the CAP fellowship at Keck School of Medicine, she struggled to take care of herself and manage the increased expectations of the program.

“I didn’t even notice I was not attending to my basic needs, such as showering or brushing my teeth on most days,” Hong says. Her inability to keep up her new daily demands culminated in forgetting to renew her medical license and being placed on temporary leave.

After CAP leadership referred her to the Lifestyle Redesign program, Hong says she instantly clicked with Liao, whom she described as “graceful, patient and supportive.”

“I immediately knew this was going to change every aspect of my life for the better, and I could not wait to continue,” Hong says.

First things first

To get Hong back on track, she and Liao first tackled Hong’s morning habits. After analyzing the environmental and sensory components of her routine, the pair discovered that Hong did not like being cold or wet in the morning. So, Liao helped Hong create practical workarounds, including placing a heater next to her bed and a cup at her bathroom sink to avoid scooping water into her mouth. This allowed her to optimize the first hours of her day.

“Before, I would be in bed for two hours literally every morning, dreading getting up,” Hong says. “Kelly completely transformed my morning routine, and we eventually worked on time management and awareness, prioritization, task initiation and completion, and incorporating environmental and externalizing scaffolding to help me cement my routines.”

One striking realization Hong had from working with Liao was how little she understood the ways ADHD affected many aspects of her everyday life and the lives of her patients — despite being a child psychiatrist.

“I wasn’t stupid, incompetent or careless for being the way I am,” Hong says. “I learned so much self-love and understanding for the way my brain functions. And that life does not need to always be this hard, all the time.”

 Trojan through and through

Liao, who describes herself as a “Trojan through and through,” was part of the bachelor’s-to-master’s program at USC Chan before earning her doctorate there. She says the Lifestyle Redesign program played a significant role in her decision to pursue her doctoral degree at USC.

“Mental health has always been a huge passion of mine, and after researching the Lifestyle Redesign program I found that it’s a perfect blend of holistic healthcare that looks at people’s behaviors, compared to traditional psychotherapy,” Liao says.

Because the program addresses chronic disease management, her colleagues in the program include clinicians who specialize in a variety of conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

Liao emphasizes that the aim of chronic disease management is not to “cure” the patient’s condition. “Clients become more confident once they know the strategies, tools and resources to use, so when challenges arise, they’re able to problem-solve and independently navigate those situations.”

Prioritizing health in college

It can be challenging to encourage college students to prioritize health and wellness at a time in life when many young people believe their body “can survive almost anything,” Liao says.

“We also know being in college means academics come first — sometimes self-care like sleeping and eating gets thrown to the side when midterms and finals are coming up.”

This was the case with Alex Zhi, a second-year graduate student at the USC Marshall School of Business. Zhi’s primary care physician referred him to the Lifestyle Redesign program for sleep issues.

After months of biweekly sessions with Liao, Zhi realized that because of occupational therapy, he could tackle issues in other areas of his life, including physical activity, nutrition and mental health.

“With Kelly’s help, I feel like I have so much support and so many resources,” Zhi says. “I feel like I literally transformed into another person: I went from someone who only eats Trader Joe’s frozen food and couldn’t get myself off the couch to someone who cooks constantly, gets enough protein and vegetables, and works out like five to six times a week.”

Zhi also found that the structure of occupational therapy sessions was more effective for him than the traditional therapy he’s experienced in the past.

“Taking very tangible steps, with someone who keeps me accountable and that I can brainstorm with, was more engaging and helped me achieve what I wanted faster,” Zhi says.

For Hong, who has now been in the program for nearly a year, the experience has been transformational.

“I learned that ADHD is actually my superpower,” Hong says. “With the proper scaffolding and skills learned through OT, I know this is just the beginning. There is absolutely nothing I cannot accomplish.”

USC researchers have developed an approach that uses artificial intelligence to generate detailed maps that highlight differences in how distinct parts of the brain age.

The new model also sheds light on how patterns of brain changes correlate with changes in cognitive function across the lifespan, according to a USC study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor Andrei Irimia of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, used magnetic resonance imaging from nearly 15,000 cognitively healthy individuals to train a deep learning AI model. The data provided a baseline against which the model could measure “local brain age,” or how old specific regions of the brain appear. When the AI model was then used to analyze MRI images from people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, it revealed distinct patterns of accelerated aging in brain regions known to be affected early in neurodegeneration.

While most studies of brain age measure this phenomenon using a single number, the new model provides a much richer picture of typical aging and neurodegeneration. Rather than assigning a single “brain age” to an individual, the approach generates a detailed map showing how old different parts of the brain appear relative to what is typical for someone of the same chronological age.

“Not all brain regions age at the same rate,” Irimia said. “Some areas appear to be more resilient, while others are more vulnerable to aging and disease. By measuring local brain aging, we can identify where the brain is aging faster than expected and how those changes relate to cognitive function.”

Brain age as a biomarker

The research builds on previous efforts to estimate brain age, an emerging neuroimaging biomarker that compares a person’s brain structure to patterns seen in healthy people across the lifespan. Traditional methods typically reduce the brain to a single age estimate, which can obscure important regional differences. The new approach instead measures local brain age at the voxel level — the three-dimensional units that make up an MRI scan — producing a much more detailed picture of structural aging throughout the brain.

“This more nuanced understanding of how the brain ages could pave the way for earlier identification of dementia, a better understanding of what factors affect risk and new ideas for treatment approaches,” Irimia said.

To develop the model, the researchers trained a deep-learning neural network using MRI scans from 14,748 cognitively normal adults ages 19 to 100 drawn from six large public datasets, including the UK Biobank, the Human Connectome Project and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. They then tested the model using MRI scans from more than 1,900 additional participants in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, including cognitively normal adults, people with mild cognitive impairment and people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Across healthy adults, the model consistently found that the frontal and temporal lobes — regions involved in decision-making, memory and other higher cognitive functions — appeared biologically older than the parietal and occipital regions, which are involved in spatial awareness and sensory processing functions. The researchers also found that the brain’s right hemisphere tended to show slightly more advanced aging than the left, a pattern that persisted regardless of whether participants were right- or left-handed.

As cognitive impairment progressed, the differences became even more pronounced. Compared with cognitively normal adults, participants with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease showed significantly older local brain ages in structures that are among the first affected by Alzheimer’s pathology, including the hippocampus, amygdala and several deep brain regions involved in memory and cognitive processing.

The researchers also found that older local brain age was associated with poorer performance on cognitive assessments, strengthening the link between structural brain changes and real-world function. The strongest relationships appeared in people with Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that regional brain aging may become increasingly informative as neurodegeneration advances.

What’s ahead: Brain aging

Because the model produces anatomically detailed maps, it could eventually help scientists better understand why some people experience faster decline in specific cognitive abilities than others. The approach may also prove useful for tracking disease progression or evaluating whether experimental therapies are slowing degeneration in targeted brain regions.

Although the findings are promising, Irimia emphasized that the method remains a research tool. The model was trained primarily on research-quality MRI data and will require additional validation using more diverse clinical datasets before it can be adopted in routine patient care. The study also relied largely on cross-sectional data, meaning that future longitudinal studies will be needed to determine whether local brain aging can reliably predict who will progress from healthy aging to mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease.

Still, the researchers believe that moving beyond a single measure of brain age represents an important advance for neuroscience.

“Brain aging isn’t uniform,” Irimia said. “By understanding how individual regions age, as well as how those patterns differ from person to person, we’re moving toward a much more precise understanding of healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease. Ultimately, that could help us identify people at risk earlier and develop more personalized approaches to preserving brain health.”

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About the study: Irimia’s co-authors include first author Nikhil N. Chaudhari, Owen M. Vega Huerta, Samayan Bhattacharya and Nahian F. Chowdhury, all of USC. The study received support from the National Institutes of Health (R01 AG 079957 to Irimia), the Hanson-Thorell Family Research Scholarship Fund, the Center for Undergraduate Research in Viterbi Engineering (CURVE) at USC and from anonymous donors.

About 10 years ago, when Jason Kutch first began surfing, he paddled out to ride the waves in considerable pain. Then a postdoctoral researcher at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Kutch had suffered for years with several chronic pain conditions, including migraines, low back pain and pelvic pain.

But after each novice surf session, he experienced an extraordinary shift.

“I got out of the water and I was like, ‘Where did the pain go?’” says Kutch, now a professor in the USC Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC.

Each time, the pain didn’t return for several days. “Once I recognized how stable and reliable that pattern of pain relief was, it took all of the anxiety out of chronic pain,” Kutch says. “Finally, there was something that I could do to control it.”

That revelation touched off a decade of research into the neurobiology of pain and the promise of surfing as a therapy. Early on, Kutch gathered data at the shoreline, tracking chronic pain sufferers’ self-reported pain before and after surf sessions.

Today, his research participants don’t zip into wetsuits or paddle into the Pacific Ocean. They don VR headsets and catch digital waves at the USC Health Sciences Campus, thanks to an immersive surfing simulator Kutch and his collaborators designed and built in Kutch’s basement lab with support from the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Users sit, kneel or stand on a surfboard mounted atop a motion platform that responds to movements they make in the virtual seascape.

“It simulates the momentary feeling of weightlessness you get when you’re caught by the wave, and then you can slide down the wave and carve back and forth,” Kutch says. “But unlike waves in the real world, in VR we can keep them perfect and going on forever.”

The project is one of several endeavors led by USC researchers that leverage realistic wave simulations to advance scientific discovery about ocean-related phenomena, from surfing to tsunamis. These technologies include both human-made waves in wave pools and interactive digital wave experiences, offering unprecedented opportunities for scholars to study — and users to immerse in — waves without the potential dangers, accessibility barriers and unpredictability of the ocean itself.

Making waves

“The technology of artificial waves goes back over 100 years,” says Peter Westwick, professor of the practice of thematic option and history at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and co-author of The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing. Westwick cites such notable attempts as a 1903 wave pool in Germany that used steam-driven mechanical agitators and a hydraulic-propelled wave machine in Tempe, Ariz., that introduced America to its first surfable artificial waves in 1969.

In recent years, wave simulations have become increasingly sophisticated — in part due to breakthrough digital and mechanical technologies pioneered by USC researchers.

Adam Fincham ’89, PhD ’94, adjunct research associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at USC Viterbi, collaborated with professional surfer Kelly Slater to design what is widely regarded as the world’s most perfect wave-pool wave. The hydrofoil system Fincham engineered displaces water in a way that closely approximates the ocean’s natural wave-creation force. A submerged 100-ton plow is dragged through the water by a vehicle on a track adjacent to a manmade lagoon, creating a swell of water.

The Kelly Slater Wave Co., where Fincham has been the chief scientist since 2010, debuted the technology in 2015 in Lemoore, Calif. — more than 100 miles inland. They turned a former artificial waterski lake into the Surf Ranch, a practice and competition hub for professional and aspiring surfers the world over. The team used computer simulations to design the contours of the lake floor, which, like a shallow reef in the ocean, coaxes the swell created by the hydrofoil to break into a surfable wave.

Slater’s signature configuration is a six-foot barreling wave that travels more than 2,300 feet, allowing for rides longer than one minute. Wave preferences can be tailored to the skill level of each visitor. The company’s technology also powers Surf Abu Dhabi, which opened in the United Arab Emirates in 2024 and holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s highest wave-pool wave (about 12.3 feet).

For Fincham — an expert in geophysical fluid dynamics, which is the study of flow and motion in large bodies of liquid — the Surf Ranch offers a unique scientific testbed. For the past several years, he and his collaborators have used the wave generator to make new discoveries about how the wind shapes waves.

Fincham notes that studying the effects of wind in the ocean can be challenging because natural conditions continually shift, and every wave is different. “The Surf Ranch serves as a laboratory where you can have the exact same wave again and again to perfect your measurements,” he says.

Waves without water

Advances in computing have paved the way for digital waves that look and behave like the real thing. To create a lifelike VR surfing experience, Jason Kutch collaborated with Heather Culbertson, associate professor of computer science, biomedical engineering and aerospace and mechanical engineering at USC Viterbi. Culbertson is an expert in haptics, which infuses virtual environments with tactile, force and motion sensations. The surfing simulator project has expanded her lab’s work into designing multisensory experiences that meld tactile and motion cues with visual and auditory ones.

Premankur Banerjee, a computer science doctoral student in Culbertson’s lab, developed the motion platform hardware that shifts the surfboard in space. He used a complex technique called motion mapping to coordinate the board’s movement with what users are doing and seeing in VR. Without this integration, riders would quickly get motion sickness.

Culbertson’s team designed algorithms to customize the behavior of the waves in Unity, a video game development engine. “Unity’s Crest engine only handles basic wave physics, so we’ve been doing a lot of adjustments in order to get to a wave that’s actually surfable,” Culbertson says. The motion platform is good at simulating waves up to two feet high, comparable to what you might see at many iconic surf breaks, Kutch says.

Kutch worked with Culbertson’s team to design the multisensory elements of the virtual seascape: a vivid coastal scene complete with leaping dolphins, swaying palm trees, sea caves and even a pirate ship. Users feel the wind in their face from a fan that tailors the force of the gusts to users’ velocity in the VR environment.

Paddling around, they hear the slosh of the water and the calls of seagulls; if they dive off the board and go underwater, the soundscape is muffled as if through liquid. Culbertson’s lab is developing haptic gloves to make users feel like their hands are touching and displacing water.

“We spent a lot of time making sure that the virtual ocean environment was engaging enough that we could compare the effect of surfing waves versus just being on the water and paddling around,” Kutch says. “We can really dial in on exactly which part of the experience affects neural activity.”

Kutch’s preliminary data suggests that surfing in VR affects a measure of brain activity called peak alpha frequency, which quantifies the speed of the brain’s resting oscillation.

“People’s brains oscillate at slightly different frequencies, and this baseline frequency is reliable and stable over time,” Kutch says. “The lower it is, the more pain-sensitive you are.”

Early data show that those who enter the VR surfing simulator with a low peak alpha frequency experience a temporary jump in this measure after completing a surfing session. Kutch hypothesizes that this boost may be one common mechanism contributing to the benefits reported in studies of surfing-based interventions for pain and other conditions, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and autism. These conditions have also been associated with lower peak alpha frequency, suggesting one possible avenue for future research.

Warning: Tsunami ahead

Though waves hold therapeutic promise, they also have destructive power. Last October, Patrick Lynett, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC Viterbi, traveled with a group of researchers to a remote Alaskan fjord to study the aftermath of a mega-tsunami caused by a massive landslide.

The tsunami began the morning of Aug. 10, 2025, after a chunk of rock with the volume of a small city detached from a mountainside adjacent to a glacier and slid into the sea. Like an anvil dropped into a bathtub, the rock made a colossal splash, generating a giant wave that ran nearly 1,600 feet up the mountainside on the opposite side of Tracy Arm fjord within a minute — the second-highest tsunami run-up ever recorded.

In Los Angeles terms, “the water got as high as the Hollywood sign,” Lynett says. “It scrubbed all of the trees and soil down to bare rock.”

After surveying the site in person, Lynett and his collaborators used computer models to recreate the landslide and the tsunami. Yet in terms of communicating about the event to the public, Lynett felt these state-of-the-art, highly accurate models failed to convey its sheer scale.

“I’ve been studying tsunamis my whole life, and I can’t really imagine what it would have been like to see water moving up a mountainside over 1,500 feet high in the course of a minute,” says Lynett, whose research focuses on building resilience to hazards like tsunamis and hurricanes in coastal communities.

<img decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-73369" src="https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game.jpg" alt="USC Viterbi professor Patrick Lynett is viewing The Tracy Arm Tsunami Experience, an immersive video game he built from computer-model data. ” width=”2400″ height=”1350″ srcset=”https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game.jpg 2400w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-300×169.jpg 300w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-2048×1152.jpg 2048w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-320×180.jpg 320w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-768×432.jpg 768w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-1280×720.jpg 1280w, https://today.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tracy-Arm-Tsunami-Experience-game-1920×1080.jpg 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px” />

Lynett decided to create a video game based on the computer-model data to immerse people in the event, virtually speaking. The game, called The Tracy Arm Tsunami Experience, allows players to explore the tsunami via four different modes of transport: running or driving an ATV on the shoreline, flying overhead in a helicopter or riding a jet ski in the water. The jet ski view is the most powerful perspective, placing users face-to-face with the gargantuan wall of water moving toward them at more than 100 miles per hour. Spoiler alert: There’s no way to outrun it.

Lynett hopes the game draws attention to the risks that landslide-generated tsunamis pose to human life. During the summer, tourist boats frequent Tracy Arm and nearby fjords to give passengers a closeup view of the glaciers. As the planet warms and glaciers retreat, adjacent mountains are destabilizing, making landslides more frequent in the fjords. Had any boats been within a few miles of last August’s mega-tsunami, there would have been no survivors.

“The idea with the video game is, if we can make the tsunami realistic and immersive, maybe we can better convey the message of caution to people who spend time in these locations,” Lynett says.

Riding into the future

USC researchers’ wave simulations are expanding access to wave encounters in places far from the coast.

Kutch and Culbertson plan to make their VR surfing simulator widely available to a variety of patient populations. “We see VR as part of a broader ecosystem of surfing-based therapies,” Kutch says. “For some people, that may mean ocean surfing. For others, a wave pool or a simulator may be the most practical option. Together, these approaches can make the benefits of surfing accessible to far more people.”

Beyond patient care, the researchers are also exploring recreational applications. “We’re looking at adapting this as a training system for surfers,” Culbertson says. “We’ll adjust not just the waves but also the controllability of the surfboard to be easier or harder based on the individual’s skill level.”

The next iteration of the Kelly Slater Wave Co. technology is the Austin Surf Club in Austin, Texas, where a new 2,200-foot surf basin and luxury clubhouse will become the centerpiece of a condominium community currently under construction. “Think of the surf club like a golf club,” Fincham says.

As these simulations bring realistic waves to landlocked contexts, they’re realizing a human quest begun over a century ago: to replicate this force of nature.

Could a “supernatural” wave that defies nature be next?

“Imagine if you could create a wave that allows an experienced surfer to do things that have never been done in the history of surfing, like a loop the loop in the barrel,” Fincham says. “That’s where we’re headed.”