Director's Message:
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become a major medical problem in the United States and around the world. With an incidence rate of 1.5 million people each year, TBI has gained national awareness. It is the "signature wound" of soldiers in the antiterrorism wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has a terrible impact on families and more recently it has been recognized as causing major sport related damage to both youngsters and adults alike. With the increase of public awareness, federal funding plays a major role in supporting research in this field.
Wayne State University (WSU) has the longest history of TBI research in the nation and a long history of clinical trials. Indeed, the national standard of Head Injury Criterion (HIC), published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was originally based on the pioneering work from WSU. Across the country, there are several major centers in TBI research, each one with unique features such as: injury biomechanics at the cellular level; pharmacological treatment in animals; axonal injury pathology; and PET imaging of TBI for example. Here at WSU, we have also brought all our capabilities and expertise to bring modern MR imaging approaches to bear on translational TBI research.
Our interdisciplinary Program for Traumatic Brain Injury Research (PTBIR) is dedicated to campus-wide research, education and treatment of TBI involving state-of-the-art Neuroimaging techniques, innovative basic research and clinical research initiatives. We are bringing together all our resources from the Detroit Medical Center, School of Medicine, Biomedical Engineering and Basic Science across campus at WSU to meet this challenge. Our main goal is to present a unique, yet unified Neuroimaging training environment to prospective neuroscientists who are interested in detecting, diagnosing and predicting the outcome of TBI as well as eventually treating TBI.
E. Mark Haacke