BUMC Research Symposium touts interdisciplinary research and collaboration
The inaugural Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) research symposium, held on March 10, brought together researchers from multiple disciplines to discuss traumatic brain injury (TBI) as it relates to sports and combat deployment.
Medical Campus Provost Karen Antman, MD, delivered opening remarks that highlighted the collaborative efforts behind the creation of the symposia.
“These symposia were established to help familiarize faculty, students and post docs with their colleagues’ research projects,” said Antman, who also is dean of the School of Medicine.
Terence Keane, MD, director of the behavioral science division of the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at Boston University (BU), discussed the important relationship between the consequences of combat and sports injuries and focused on the importance of collaboration among researchers.
“Boston University has tremendous interdisciplinary strengths that position us in an astounding way to address the problems associated with PTSD and TBI,” said Keane, who also is a professor and vice-chair of the Department of Psychiatry at BUSM. “These presentations represent a culmination of our collaboration to identify how we can learn from one another and work to improve the outcomes among those suffering from PTSD and TBI.”
Jennifer Vasterling, PhD, professor of psychiatry and chief of psychology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, discussed her research projects on how mild TBI and PTSD affect the neuropsychological performance of military personnel before and after deployment. Ann Rasmusson, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and staff psychiatrist at VA Boston Healthcare System, spoke about the Translational Research Center for Traumatic Brain Injury and Stress Disorders (TRACTS) and the work being done to better understand the impact of TBI on the consequences of stress-related emotional disorders.
From BUSM’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), Ann McKee, MD, professor of neurology and director of the VISN 1 neuropathology lab at Bedford VA Medical Center, and Robert Stern, PhD, associate professor of neurology, presented their current research on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease believed to be caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, including concussions or subconcussive blows to the head.
Lee Goldstein, MD, associate professor of neurology, discussed his research on blast injury and TBI using mouse models. Neil Kowall, MD, professor of neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, as well as chief of neurology at VA Boston Healthcare System, rounded out the symposium with a brief discussion of how acute injury in TBI can initiate a chronic progressive neurodegenerative disorder.
Upcoming symposia topics include community-based strategies for reducing health disparities and current research on addiction. For more information, visit http://www.bumc.bu.edu/research/.