A researcher at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix has received a $1.65 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Theresa Currier Thomas, Ph.D., a researcher in the Department of Child Health and an assistant professor at Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children's Hospital, will use the grant money to test changes in brain communication after a traumatic brain injury by using microelectrodes that record neural signals.
Thomas compared movement in the brain to freeway traffic, and that a traumatic injury is like a car accident.
"We have to have a way of understanding if there's an accident in the brain," Thomas said, "how that brain recovers and regroups."
The project marks the first time an electrochemical assessment will be used to study traumatic brain injury in real time.