Prior support through the Publication Grant Program of the National Library of Medicine enabled an initial evaluation of the Denny-Brown collection of research material, including the videotaping and editing of 500 of the approximately 2200 films depicting the behavior of monkeys with lesion of many major CNS structures. The project began 12/01/92 and was granted a no cost extension for a second year. The current proposal requests an additional 2 years of funding. There are 11 other series of primate lesion experiments. Additionally, there are about 22,000 histological slides, which were sorted and catalogued as part of the initial project, that show the extent of the lesions in almost all of these animals. Since the NLM Publication Grant Program does not support Competing Continuation applications, the PI's are seeking continued funding of the project by NINDS. The proposed 2- Year project will: 1) continue the process of verbally annotating each videotape. This annotation by the Co-PI, completed for the first ten animals, describes Denny-Brown's methodology and the behavior being exhibited by the animal in each film sequence; 2) continue the process of typing all the handwritten records for the DC series of animals (completed for the first six animals); 3) videotape the remaining 1700 films; 4) arrange for transfer of the entire collection to the National Museum of Health and Medicine at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which has agreed to maintain it as a research collection; 5) publicize via reports and presentations the availability of the collection; and 6) seek evaluations of the DC series of annotated videotapes to determine of the videotapes of the other series should undergo a similar process of editing and annotation. In addition to the films of monkeys with CNS lesions, the Denny-Brown collection includes approximately 500 films of some of the patients under Denny-Brown's care at Boston City and Long Island Hospitals between 1946 and 1967. These films have potential clinical and/or research value because they depict a group of patients with end- stage disease (e.g., Parkinson's, Huntington's, Wilson's) and non- contemporary diseases (e.g., post-encephalitic parkinsonism), and because they typify the neurological examination process that was used at the time, e.g., that of trying to elicit reflexes that were released as a consequence of CNS damage. Thus, the proposed project will also involve selecting, videotaping, editing and annotating some of the films Denny-Brown made of humans with neurological diseases.
