? This application request funds for two purposes: ? 1) Career development: the applicant plans to complete an established master's degree program in clinical research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The career goals include short and long-term goals. Short-term goals include the master's program of study, oversight of mentee during a patient-oriented research project and refinement of a collaborative, multidisciplinary team. The long term goals include assuming a leadership role in clinical research, developing Program Project of Center grant applications, and possibly leading clinical trials network. ? 2) Research Plan: ? -To acquire high-quality neuromuscular signals from the female urethra using concentric needle EMG (with quantitative motor unit analysis) and current perception testing in order to test the null hypotheses that there are no differences in urethral sphincter neuromuscular function in: ? i. Women by race (Caucasian vs. African American), ? ii. Women by continence status (continent vs. incontinent) ? iii. Continent women by parity (parous vs. nulliparous). ? -To collaborate with computer scientists to import these signals into a graphic computer model which accurately reflects our clinical understanding of urethral function ? -To combine urethral and bladder data into the same model and create """"""""rules"""""""" for urethral and bladder interaction. ? b. To model urinary storage in health and disease ? c. To model urinary emptying in health and diseas ? ?
| Spirka, Thomas; Kenton, Kimberly; Brubaker, Linda et al. (2013) Effect of material properties on predicted vesical pressure during a cough in a simplified computational model of the bladder and urethra. Ann Biomed Eng 41:185-94 |
| Kenton, Kimberly; Mueller, Elizabeth; Brubaker, Linda (2011) Continent women have better urethral neuromuscular function than those with stress incontinence. Int Urogynecol J 22:1479-84 |
