Mark P. Goldberg, M.D., (Director)

DEPARTMENT OF Neurology
C. Robert Almli, Ph.D.; Debra J. Babcock, M.D., Ph.D.; Margarita Behrens, Ph.D.; Lorella M.T. Canzoniero, M.D., Ph.D.; Anne H. Cross, M.D.; Michael N. Diringer, M.D.; Mark P. Goldberg, M.D.; David I. Gottlieb, Ph.D.; David H. Gutmann, M.D., Ph.D.; David M. Holtzman, M.D.; Chung Y. Hsu, M.D., Ph.D.; Mark F. Jacquin, Ph.D.; Eugene M. Johnson Jr., Ph.D.; Jin-Moo Lee, M.D., Ph.D.; Weili Lin, Ph.D.; Anne Fagan Niven, Ph.D.; Alexander Parsadanian, Ph.D.; William J. Powers, M.D.; Steven M. Rothman, M.D.; Christian T. Sheline, Ph.D.; B. Joy Snider, M.D., Ph.D.; John L. Trotter, M.D.; Jian Xu, M.D., Ph.D.; Kelvin A. Yamada, M.D.; Shan Ping Yu, M.D., Ph.D.
Keywords: CNS, injury, stroke, neurodegeneration, neuroscience, cell biology

Central nervous system injury is a problem of widespread clinical importance currently lacking treatment but ripe for the development of new therapeutics derived from advances in neuroscience. Such injury occurs in two main settings. The first is acute insults, such as stroke (caused by sudden loss of blood flow to the brain, or hemorrhage), head trauma or spinal cord trauma. The second is chronic neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Parkinson's disease or Huntington's disease. Taken together, central nervous system injury represents one of the most important challenges facing medicine today. It is particularly significant in the elderly population, where it ranks as the leading cause of disability and one of the leading causes of death. To approach this pressing problem, Washington University established the Center for the Study of Nervous System Injury in 1992. The center's mission is to develop new therapeutic strategies to protect the brain and spinal cord from injury and to promote recovery once injury has occurred.

Reduction of brain injury has been accomplished recently in animal stroke or spinal cord injury models with several different drugs, but these observations are likely only first steps in the emerging field of neuroprotection. The development of more powerful approaches will require the systematic identification of injury principles. These approaches may be as relevant to the neuronal loss associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis as they are to losses associated with acute insults, such as hypoxia, ischemia, trauma and epilepsy. Elucidation of repair principles may permit interventions that aid functional recovery once the central nervous system has been injured.

The center seeks to define basic principles of neuronal injury and recovery at the cellular and molecular level. The long-term goal of the Center for the Study of Nervous System Injury is to assemble a research "pipeline" capable of identifying novel therapeutic approaches and bringing them to clinical trial in specific disease states.