GUMC, MedStar Launch Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery

Georgetown University Medical Center announced the launch of a new neuroscience research center in a press release Thursday.

The Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery, a collaboration with MedStar National Rehabilitation Network, will study neural plasticity using interdisciplinary methods, a rare approach among high-level research institutions, according to Howard Federoff, executive vice president for health sciences at GUMC.

“This unique interdisciplinary approach will harness Georgetown’s strengths in the sciences and humanities, including linguistics, foreign languages, psychology and philosophy, and match them with MedStar NRH’s clinical and patient care expertise,” Michael Yochelson, vice president of medical affairs and chief medical officer at MedStar NRH, wrote in the press release.

Georgetown neurology professor Elissa Newport will serve as director of the joint initiative, and MedStar NRH rehabilitation medicine professor Alexander Dromerick will serve as co-director.

“Significant gains in neuroscience research are attainable by bringing together teams of scientists and clinicians -- a rare interdisciplinary integration of neuroscience research across the spectrum, from genetic and molecular to behavioral and cognitive levels of analysis, bridging basic science and clinical application,” Newport said. 

Though the center’s research will first focus on stroke, the study of neural plasticity can be applied to Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury.