This is an application for a K23 award for Dr. Heidi Schambra, a neurologist at Columbia University. Dr. Schambra's long-term career goals are to become a leading clinical investigator in stroke recovery, to improve the well-being of patients with neurologic injury, and to advance the field of neurorehabilitation. This K23 award will provide her with the support necessary to accomplish her short-term career goals, which are: (1) to conduct prospective clinical research in stroke patients; (2) to become expert in quantitative motor recovery and ad- vanced stroke neurophysiology; (3) to implement biostatistician methodology in clinical research; and (4) to de- velop an independent clinical research career that is R01-funded. To achieve these goals, Dr. Schambra has assembled a mentoring team comprised of a primary mentor, Dr. John Krakauer, an internationally recognized authority in motor learning and stroke recovery, and two co-mentors: Dr. Randolph Marshall, a leader in pros- pective clinical research in stroke; and Dr. Pietro Mazzoni, an expert in motor control in neurologically impaired patients. She will also have three scientific advisors: Dr. Pablo Celnik, an authority in stroke neurophysiology; Dr. Todd Ogden, a biostatistician with extensive biomedical research experience; and Dr. Robert Sainburg, a specialist in motor control in stroke. Dr. Schambra has the firm institutional support of the Departments of Neu- urology and Rehabilitation Medicine, and she will receive comprehensive instruction from Columbia's robust scientific and clinical communities. There is a fundamental gap in our mechanistic understanding of motor recovery after stroke. The long- term objective is to use knowledge about biological recovery processes to develop mechanism-based treat- ments for patients after stroke. The specific objective here is to determine how longitudinal changes in corti- cospinal and intracortical physiology relate to changes in motor impairment in either limb after stroke. The ra- tionale for this project is that its successful completion would strongly suggest a mechanistic role for neurophy- siology in motor recovery. This project will leverage the existing infrastructure of a multicenter parent study, lead by Dr. Krakauer, to evaluate 45 stroke patients over 5 time points in the first year following stroke. Dr. Schambra will test the central hypothesi that certain stereotyped recovery behaviors will have distinct neuro- physiological signatures. She will do this by identifying the neurophysiologic correlates of: the recovery of strength and motor control in the paretic arm (Aim 1), the proximal-to-distal progression of motor recovery in the paretic arm (Aim 2), and the recovery of motor control in the nonparetic arm (Aim 3).
All aims will utilize correlation analyses. The proposed research is innovative in its use of quantitative physiologic and behavioral measures to study a surprisingly neglected period after stroke. It is expected to be significant by providing a rational basis for targeting specific neurophysiologic components at different times after stroke, to be proposed by Dr. Schambra in a future R01 application.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed research will improve our understanding of the brain physiology that relates to recovery after stroke. It is relevant to public health, because th knowledge gained will be used to develop better rehabilitation strategies that improve recovery, reducing the burden carried by patients with stroke.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23)
Project #
5K23NS078052-04
Application #
8875077
Study Section
NST-2 Subcommittee (NST)
Program Officer
Chen, Daofen
Project Start
2012-07-01
Project End
2016-06-30
Budget Start
2015-07-01
Budget End
2016-06-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Columbia University (N.Y.)
Department
Physical Medicine & Rehab
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
621889815
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10032
Ejaz, Naveed; Xu, Jing; Branscheidt, Meret et al. (2018) Evidence for a subcortical origin of mirror movements after stroke: a longitudinal study. Brain :
Cortes, Juan C; Goldsmith, Jeff; Harran, Michelle D et al. (2017) A Short and Distinct Time Window for Recovery of Arm Motor Control Early After Stroke Revealed With a Global Measure of Trajectory Kinematics. Neurorehabil Neural Repair 31:552-560
Guerra, Jorge; Uddin, Jasim; Nilsen, Dawn et al. (2017) Capture, learning, and classification of upper extremity movement primitives in healthy controls and stroke patients. IEEE Int Conf Rehabil Robot 2017:547-554
Saulle, Michael F; Schambra, Heidi M (2016) Recovery and Rehabilitation after Intracerebral Hemorrhage. Semin Neurol 36:306-12
Schambra, Heidi M; Martinez-Hernandez, Isis E; Slane, Kevin J et al. (2016) The neurophysiological effects of single-dose theophylline in patients with chronic stroke: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized cross-over study. Restor Neurol Neurosci 34:799-813
Schambra, Heidi; Im, Brian; O'Dell, Michael W (2015) Should This Patient With Ischemic Stroke Receive Fluoxetine? PM R 7:1294-1299
Schambra, Uta B; Goldsmith, Jeff; Nunley, Kevin et al. (2015) Low and moderate prenatal ethanol exposures of mice during gastrulation or neurulation delays neurobehavioral development. Neurotoxicol Teratol 51:1-11
Schambra, Heidi M; Ogden, R Todd; Martínez-Hernández, Isis E et al. (2015) The reliability of repeated TMS measures in older adults and in patients with subacute and chronic stroke. Front Cell Neurosci 9:335
Schambra, H M; Bikson, M; Wager, T D et al. (2014) It's all in your head: reinforcing the placebo response with tDCS. Brain Stimul 7:623-4