Advanced Platform Technology Center
VA APT Researcher Receives Funds From The American Heart Association To Improve Treatment For Stroke
Ela Plow, PhD, a researcher with the Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center of Excellence at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (LSCVAMC) and a staff member at the Cleveland Clinic’s Neurological Institute, received a $ 154,000 award from the American Heart and Stroke Association. The newly funded research project is entitled “Novel Brain Stimulation Therapies in Stroke Guided by Expressions of Plasticity.” The application was successful on the first try and received a 1.72 percentile.
Dr. Plow will focus on developing a treatment model that will personalize brain stimulation treatment for stroke patients, in order to increase the rehabilitative recovery of the upper limbs. Currently, stimulation is not approved for outpatient therapy because its benefits become variable across patients who suffer from substantial disability.
“This model would individualize stimulation to the brain based on the patient’s individual expression of plasticity,” says Dr. Plow. “We believe this would improve upper limb outcomes in patients across a wide range of severity and enable them to lead healthier lives free of disability.”
Dr. Plow says that by personalizing stimulation, health care professionals will be able to translate an evolutionarily conserved biologic mechanism (plasticity) into a clinically relevant therapeutic strategy (stimulation).
Her research interests include brain stimulation, motor control, neuroimaging, clinical neuroscience and rehabilitation. One of the main focuses of Dr. Plow’s work has been utilizing functional neuroimaging to discern substrates of movement control and movement relearning-related plasticity in the healthy vs. post-stroke brain.
About the APT Center: The APT Center is one of 17 designated Centers of Excellence in the Rehabilitation Research and Development (RR&D) Service of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Established in 2005 as a collaboration between the LSCDVAMC and CWRU, the APT Center focuses on applying the most recent advancements in microelectronics, material science, microfabrication, wireless communication and mechanical design to the pressing medical needs of disabled veterans, and translating them into viable clinical options.
Investigators, project staff and support specialists associated with the Center concentrate their professional effort on translational research in the areas of: Prosthetics and Orthotics, Health Monitoring and Maintenance, Neural Interfacing, and Emerging Enabling Technologies. For additional information about the APT Center, please follow the link: http://www.aptcenter.research.va.gov/
