Request for Funding

Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2004

Keith E. Tansey, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor, Neurology
Director, Spinal Cord Injury Center

Plasticity of Spinal Circuits after Injury

The research questions we ask in the basic science lab are concerned with neural repair and plasticity and associated functional recovery after spinal cord injury. We know that the spinal cord contains neural circuitry capable of integrating afferent input and supraspinal input to carry out many functions and that this spinal circuitry can recover from deprivation of some of that input to regain its functional capabilities. We are interested in how the neural circuitry changes after injury and whether those changes can be manipulated to improve recovery. We are specifically interested in the physiological changes that occur within myotactic and pain reflexes below and across the level of spinal injury and changes in the ability of supraspinal centers to activate the spinal circuitry for stepping after spinal injury of varying severity and differing recovery time. We also want to learn how therapeutic interventions like locomotor training or drugs might affect these changes through activity dependent plasticity and/or other means. Finally, we are interested in other biological processes, such as sprouting, by which neural repair may be occurring or may be caused by therapeutic interventions in spinal cord injury.

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