Understanding Muscle Structure in Cerebral Palsy: Sunnie Vuong's Summer Research

One of the most rewarding aspects of running the Digital Athlete Lab is watching undergraduate students take ownership of meaningful research. This summer, Sunnie Vuong did exactly that with her NSERC-funded project investigating the structural characteristics of the adductor longus and gracilis muscles from children with cerebral palsy.

Why This Research Matters

Cerebral palsy affects the musculoskeletal system in ways we are still working to fully understand. The adductor longus and gracilis are two muscles frequently involved in surgical interventions for children with cerebral palsy, yet the structural characteristics of these muscles have not been thoroughly characterized. Without a clear picture of how these muscles differ structurally from those of typically developing children, clinicians are making important decisions with incomplete information.

Sunnie’s project tackles this directly. Working in collaboration with Dr. Walter Herzog’s lab and building on our long-standing partnership with Alberta Children’s Hospital, she has been characterizing structural properties of muscle tissue from pediatric surgical samples.

A Productive Summer of Dissemination

What stands out about Sunnie’s summer is not just the quality of her research, but her commitment to sharing it. She presented her findings at four separate venues:

1. An oral presentation at the McCaig Institute Summer Student Symposium in August
2. A poster at the Transdisciplinary Child & Maternal Health Trainee Research Day
3. An 8-minute oral presentation at the 26th Annual Alberta Biomedical Engineering Conference in October
4. A seminar at the Human Performance Lab in November

Each of these presentations required adapting the same core research for different audiences and formats — a skill that is invaluable for any aspiring researcher.

Building on a Legacy

This work builds on the lab’s continued investment in understanding pediatric muscle physiology. Previous students, including Latif Omerkhil, Arianna Hu, Birtej Mangat, and Gavin Thomas, have all contributed to this research program through NSERC, PURE, and faculty-funded projects. Sunnie’s structural characterization work adds an important new dimension alongside earlier studies focused on active force production and fatigue.

Congratulations to Sunnie on an exceptional summer of research.