Request for Funding

Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2004

Mentor: Keith Tansey, MD, PhD
Department: Neurology
Room number: L1.120, L1.114
Mail Code: 8897
Phone number: 88747 (office), 80487 (lab)
E-mail: keith.tansey@utsouthwestern.edu

Three projects

Project 1 title: Robotic and Therapist Provided Body Weight Support Treadmill
Training (BWSTT) in Incomplete SCI Patients.

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): #0301 169, #0603 334, Submitted/Pending (Robotic Protocol)

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)

Patient based research - mechanisms of functional recovery after neurological injury

Brief Description of Project:

The goal of this project is to study activity dependent plasticity in spinal cord function in response to locomotor training in SCI patients. Patients will undergo BWSTT either with physical therapists or in the Lokomat, a robotic device to retrain gait. Another group of patients will undergo BWSTT with therapists and simultaneously be given Sinemet in an attempt to augment the training process. Outcome measures will include over-ground gait measures, segmental spinal cord reflexes, supraspinal changes as measured by fMRI, and non-specific measures such as urodynamics. This project is being carried out in cooperation with several investigators including Dr. Lance Goetz (PM&R, VA) and Dr. Patricia Winchester (Chair, Physical Therapy).

Project 2 title: Activity Dependent Plasticity in Spinal Circuits after Injury

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): #0971 03 02 1, #0971 03 03 1, #0971-03 04 1

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)

Animal based research - model of clinical disease, mechanisms of functional recovery after neurological injury

Brief Description of Project:

The goal of this project is to determine how specific spinal circuits function after cord contusion injuries of various severities or after variable times of recovery and determine the extent to which locomotor training can cause plasticity in those circuits and associated functional recovery. In rodent injury models, circuits subserving myotactic reflexes, intersegmental pain reflexes and supraspinal control of locomotion are evaluated using behavioral and electrophysiological methods after injury with or without robotic step training.

Project III title: "Transplantation of adipose-derived progenitor cells in spinal cord injury: effects on functional recovery"

Animal subjects IRB approved project number: 0971-03-05-1

Project Type : Animal-based research

Brief Description of Project:

The main goal of the project would be to harvest adipose progenitor cells from rats, culture these cells, and transplant them back into the animals at the site of a spinal cord injury. Ideally, these cells would successfully differentiate into neurons and improve spinal cord function. The steps are as follows:

1. Harvest fat pads from a set of rats.
2. Carry out the cell culture purification/selection process to isolate the progenitor cells (about a 2 week process).
3. During that time, perform spinal cord contusions in the same group of rats (around one week after the fat pad harvesting procedure).
4. Transplant the cells back into the area of injury (some into non-injured cords, some undifferentiated ADAPs into injured cords, and some "neurotized" ADAPs into injured cords) and then follow the behavioral recovery of those rats (a 3 to 4 week process).
5. At the end of the recovery process, I will assist Dr. Tansey in performing some electrophysiological assessments of recovery.
6. After this assessment, we will sacrifice and perfuse the animals.
7. The remainder of the time spent in the laboratory would be spent on histological assessment of the transplanted cells and cell culture analysis.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

2003 summer research:
Binh Nguyen MS0, development and transplantation of bioengineered channels for axonal regrowth in severed rat sciatic nerve
Deeba Ali, MS1, measurement of the cutaneus trunci muscle reflex in normal and spinal cord contused rats

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