Research Interests
A primary focus of my research is to examine the influences of injury and disease on functional brain organization. This research includes both behavioral and MRI-based techniques and examines both acute and long-term patient outcome variables. MRI-based techniques provide the opportunity to examine alterations in the cerebral substrate and to correlate those basic brain changes with cognitive and functional outcome. In my laboratory, these MRI methods include proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy to examine neurometabolism, diffusion tensor imaging to examine structural white matter changes, and functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine cognitive deficits. Currently, with investigators at Hershey Medical Center, we have initiated a longitudinal study examining basic brain changes associated with severe brain trauma over the course of the first 6 months of recovery. A second goal of my work is to examine the validity of using functional MRI techniques to assess cognitive and functional outcomes in individuals sustaining severe brain trauma. There is already an emerging literature employing fMRI to examine a myriad of deficits caused by brain trauma. However, the validity of these findings remains in question due to the potential influence of brain injury on cerebral blood flow (the basis of the fMRI signal). Through funding by the NIH-NINDS, we are now examining how brain trauma potentially alters the fMRI signal. A fundamental understanding of the influence of brain trauma on the fMRI signal will provide investigators with better methods to describe and interpret fMRI data in studies of TBI as well as other clinical samples.
