REPAIR Project Shines Light on Brain Injury
by admin on 11/05/10 at 9:17 am
A study lead by Stanford University of how the brain and its microcircuitry react to physiological changes has received $14.9 million in federal funding and may shed light on how to promote rcovery from brain injury.
The project, dubbed REPAIR (Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery), spans fields from electrical engineering to neuroscience to machine learning. REPAIR will be conducted by Stanford researchers alongside 10 other researchers and their teams from Brown University, UC-San Francisco and University College London.
By genetically engineering specific cells in mice brains to be responsive to lights, scientists can temporarily shut off specific parts of the brains of the research animals using quick bursts of light. This simulates injuries that enable the researchers to study how the brain can work around damaged tissue, according to a REPAIR researcher. This “optogenics” technique is far from human application, but offers hope that one day scientists will use light rather than drugs or behavioral therapy to treat brain damage, both of wich are limited in their effectiveness and specificity. Future treatments utilizing optogenics may be able to target specific parts of the brain. REPAIR researchers hope to reroute brain signals around damaged areas of the brain, much in the way heart bypass surgery can correct damaged blood vessels.
The federal funding comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, run by the U.S. Department of Defense. Many U.S. troops have suffered brain damage as a result of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, brain injury is the signature injury of the Iraq war.
