Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious problem. TBI, including brain injury without external head wounds, often results from accidents of various causes. The most common and debilitating consequences of TBI include problems with fundamental neural processes such as efficient and effective planning, sustained attention, memory and learning, and decision-making . all indispensable functions for everyday life and the conduct of most professions, especially during periods of high demand. Addressing these consequences is thus paramount for re-establishing the high levels of cognitive abilities required for patients hoping to recover their pre-injury activities to the fullest extent possible. Despite the serious consequences of these injuries, effective diagnostic and treatment options remain limited. Recent developments of novel technical means to monitor the living brain and the rise of the area of cognitive neurorehabilitation within the field of neurosciences may offer great, and for some patients the only, hope for long-term recovery. Promising new possibilities for treatment have arisen from recent discoveries of methods for modifying brain activity. New treatments, however, must be firmly grounded in an understanding of the underlying targeted cognitive disabilities as well as of the methods intended to change them. By combining state-of-the-art neuroscience methods for measuring brain activity with methodologies designed to modify cognitive abilities, our goal is to make concrete steps towards developing more effective treatments for patients who have suffered TBI, as well as to provide better cognitive and neurobiological instruments to assess even mild TBI that may have gone undetected by current standard measures. The Center for Brain Injury Research and Treatment (CBIRT) was created to pursue these goals through a multi-pronged approach to address the problem of TBI, carried out by a multidisciplinary clinical and research team.
The Center is built on a long-standing collaboration between clinicians and scientists based at the VA Northern California Health Care System.s campus in Martinez, CA and the San Francisco, Berkeley and Davis campuses of the University of California. Over 25 years ago, many of the senior clinical and basic scientists of CBIRT engaged as a team in seminal research that contributed to the emergence of cognitive neuroscience as a field of study. These efforts have attracted several outstanding new investigators, many with research interests focused on cognitive neural rehabilitation. The CBIRT team includes experts in rehabilitation, behavioral neurology, neuropharmacology, neuropsychology, structural and functional brain imaging, electroencepholography (EEG), as well as cognitive and sensory neuroscience. Our team is equipped to test the effectiveness of several rehabilitation methods designed to enhance recovery in language, visual attention, action and planning, as well as auditory and speech perception abilities. Assessment of the effectiveness of rehabilitation necessitates monitoring biological and physiological markers of recovery by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalographic recordings (EEG) and transcortical magnetic stimulation (TMS), our team includes experts in the use of these techniques and the analysis and interpretation of these measures. Finally, the presence of clinical neurologists, clinical neuropsychologists, and rehabilitation specialists guarantees the Center.s ability to gauge the clinical value of findings. Under the leadership of Director Marc D.Esposito, MD, and Associate Director Anthony Chen, MD, the CBIRT team comprises both senior and junior investigators affiliated with various medical and academic institutions in the greater San Francisco area.
Karen A. Sigvardt
Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Research, VANCHCS
Bldg R4, 150 Muir Road
Martinez, CA 94553
email: kasigvardt@ucdavis.edu
phone: (925)372-2003