This proposal provides 5 years of support to train Dr. Forgacs to become an independent clinical investigator, with a research focus on characterizing specific circuit-level neurobiological mechanisms important to recovery of consciousness in patients with severe anoxic brain injury after cardiac arrest.  

This project a pilot feasibility study of deep cerebellar brain stimulation in patients who have sustained enduring motor deficits after stroke. Physiological investigations of global and focal neurological disturbances of conscious awareness.

The goal of this experimental research project is to expand the scope of our existing IP to include specific, measured evidence of critical parameters, i.e. ‘biomarkers’, for ‘closed-loop’ control of fsCT-DBS protocols. Daedalus funding will provide WCM with the sole rights to these new inventions and strengthen our existing IP portfolio potentially broadening the future applications of our new fsCT-DBS system to emerging indications in the rapidly expanding neuromodulation market.

This is a multi-center collaborative grant (Weill Cornell, Mount Sinai) that aims to carry out a longitudinal study of the mechanisms underlying executive attention impairment after TBI. The study will employ EEG and DTI along with neuropsychological assessments in the subacute and chronic stages of recovery to establish biomarkers of impairment and create models of prognosis. The long-term goal of these studies is to enable stratification, improve diagnosis, inform therapeutic interventions and predict prognosis.

This is a multi-center, multi-PI collaborative grant (Weill Cornell, Stanford University, Harvard/Spaulding, Cleveland Clinic, University of Utah) that aims to carry out a first-in-man feasibility study of central thalamic deep brain stimulation for the treatment of chronic cognitive impairment after severe-to-moderate brain injuries. The long-term goal of these studies is to establish a new therapeutic avenue for severely brain-injured patients and to develop a new device platform based on pre-clinical studies carried out under 1R01 NS067249.

This project links three groups of investigators at Weill Cornell (Schiff, ND, Purpura, KP), Rockefeller University (Pfaff, D) and Medical College of Wisconsin (Buston, C) under a multiple PI mechanism (Schiff, ND as Administrative PI) to develop an integrative research program modeling central thalamic brain stimulation as a therapeutic technique. Weill Cornell studies will include the effects of electrical stimulation of the central thalamus on frontal lobe activity during performance of cognitive tasks in the awake primate study.

This project develops a multi-modal brain imaging assessment of minimally conscious state patients following severe brain injuries using FDG-PET, quantitative EEG and DTI and functional MRI. Several mechanistic hypotheses are tested related to the role of the corticothalamic system in recovery of consciousness following severe brain injuries. 

This multi-center collaborative grant (Cambridge U, UK; U. Liege, Belgium; Hebrew University, Israel; Western U, Canada; U Paris, France; Weill Cornell, Columbia, Mount Sinai, Harvard/Spaulding, USA) aims to test a core battery of evaluations using fMRI and EEG technologies across patients with a broad ranges of functional outcomes and etiologies of brain damage to assess recovery of function.