BRC researcher wins Innovation Award at Stroke Congress

Mr. Thomas Harrison, a member of Dr. Tim Murphy’s lab, earned top honors at the 2011 Stroke Congress for his research regarding the spontaneous reorganization of neural circuitry after stroke. Mr. Harrison’s research, which uses laser light to map the brains of mice after stroke and to track recovery, won the Innovation Award – a distinction that "highlights a study that brings a completely new approach to an important research problem with the potential for addressing questions that previously could not be investigated."

Mr. Harrison’s research looks into the plasticity of the brain and serves to dispel the popular belief that the brain is hardwired in adulthood. After suffering a stroke, the physical damage is irreversible but the brain is capable of spontaneous functional recovery, meaning the surviving brain cells will assume roles previously performed by stroke-affected cells. Although surviving brain regions are forced to compensate for a loss of neural circuitry, the process is necessary for recovery of function following severe injuries. 

“Stroke recovery is a slow process, and is best studied in longitudinal experiments. In the motor cortex, the brain region responsible for voluntary movement, such experiments have been constrained by the limitations of electrical brain stimulation. My colleagues and I recently developed a painless technique that can be performed repeatedly over hours, weeks and months; this has never been possible before, repeating this experiment many times before and after stroke in the same mouse allows us to monitor the process of reorganization that occurs as the brain responds to injury” says Mr. Harrison. 

The study is still underway, but Mr. Harrison says research has already provided evidence of the brain's ability to rewire itself after stroke. "In the future, we hope to use this method to identify therapies or methods of rehabilitation that can optimize this spontaneous recovery process." 

In a larger sense, Mr. Harrison's research will also advance our understanding of plasticity in the adult brain, which has important implications for learning, addiction and recovery from other forms of brain damage.