Research

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Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has been dubbed "the signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." With increasing sophistication of weaponry used in warfare, more and more people in war zones are subjected to shearing forces on their brains from explosive shockwaves. Clinicians around the world are now tasked with treating traumatic brain injury in both veterans returning home and civilian refugees fleeing areas of conflict. Even if the initial injury is stabilized and the patient is resuscitated, TBI then morphs into a chronic disease, entailing progressive degeneration of function as time goes on. Many patients experience debilitating loss of cognition, memory, and ability to complete activities of daily living. At this time, there is no effective cure to reverse or even halt the progression of disease. 

My current research project investigates the changes to neurons in this chronic timeframe. Specifically, we are looking into neurons in the cornu ammonis 1 (CA1) region of the hippocampus, an area long associated with memory function. We have found that when observed 4 weeks following injury, there is increased branching in the dendrites of CA1 neurons. Presumably, this is an attempt by the brain to compensate for the loss of neurons – through indiscriminate branching, it may be attempting to reestablish those lost connections. However, this indiscriminate branching does not work to our advantage. Both clinical data and animal research show that function continues to decline, not improve, over time. Instead, we see impairments in memory, a process dependent on long term potentiation (the deliberate pruning of neuronal connections over time), as well as increased epileptogenesis (caused by excessive neuroexcitability). Furthermore, we are investigating protein expression in these injured neurons, in particular those associated with neurogenesis. Further study may yield information about future therapeutic targets to mitigate the chronic changes in the hippocampal neurons that follow TBI. 

Presentations:

Symposium of the National Neurotrauma Society, 2022

Safar Symposium, 2021

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Dean's Summer Research Presentation, 2020