Functional magnetic resonance imaging as a prognostic tool after severe brain injury

People who have severe brain injuries that lead to a complete loss of consciousness are often admitted to an intensive care unit for aggressive life-sustaining therapies. Currently, there are no tools available to doctors to determine which patients will regain consciousness and have a good recovery. This makes discussions surrounding continuing treatment vs. withdrawal of lifesaving therapies very challenging for families and doctors. Currently, new and advanced neuroimaging tools (called functional MRI) are being used to measure and map brain activity of unresponsive patients. Early data suggests that these tools may be useful in predicting recovery for these patients. To this end, the objective of this Globalink project is to validate these new tools with a large sample of patients to help determine if functional MRI can be used to predict recovery in patients who have had a severe brain injury. This project will serve as the first official collaboration in this field between scientists at Western University and Harvard University.

Faculty Supervisor:

Adrian Owen

Student:

Partner:

Harvard University

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

The University of Western Ontario

Program: