This major public-private initiative partners the Dayton region’s strongest biomedical research institution with the clinical resources of the region’s leading hospital system to create the WSU & PHP Neuroscience Institute. Miami Valley Hospital has made a major investment of $4.35 million over five years to create a new Department of Neurology within the WSU Boonshoft School of Medicine. The investment includes long-term support for clinical neurologists who will form the nucleus for collaboration with the university-based neuroscientists in critical research in stroke and movement disorders. A national search is underway for the founding chair of the new department.

Governor Ted Strickland designated the new institute as one of Ohio’s Centers of Excellence in Biomedicine and Health Care.

The Boonshoft School of Medicine has a talented cadre of NIH-funded neuroscientists, along with excellent core resources and equipment for cutting-edge laboratory research, including microscopic imaging, genomics, proteomics and electrophysiology. A primary focus of their research is nervous system disorders that affect movement. The PHP system has a large and diverse patient base that provides excellent opportunity for high-quality research and clinical trials.

The institute will be the critical centerpiece for conducting neuroscience research, and will promote ways to move the results of that research directly from the laboratory to the bedside, providing outstanding neurological clinical care to the community and creating a clinical and research enterprise that will be pivotal for the region’s economic recovery. Joint research activities and related investments will have direct economic impact on the community, amounting to tens of millions of dollars over the next five years. The emergence of a strong neuroscience institute through this collaboration will be a watershed accomplishment for the Dayton region. Read more.

Institute Home Page | Fact Sheet | FAQ | Economic Impact

(Left) Architectural vision of the proposed Neurological Sciences Research Building at WSU.

Wright State University is in the process of raising funds for a new $22-million state-of-the-art laboratory building within its existing biomedical and engineering research corridor. The new 64,000-square-foot facility will feature sustainable design, interdisciplinary laboratories and shared core resources for more than 100 scientists, physicians, and student researchers. Read more.

“Tapert’s team found damaged nerve tissue in the brains of the teens who drank. The researchers believe this damage negatively affects attention span in boys, and girls’ ability to comprehend and interpret visual information.

For the study, published last month in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Tapert looked at 12- to 14-year-olds before they used any alcohol or drugs. Over time, some of the kids started to drink, a few rather heavily — consuming four or five drinks per occasion, two or three times a month — classic binge drinking behavior in teens.

Comparing the young people who drank heavily with those who remained non-drinkers, Tapert’s team found that the binge drinkers did worse on thinking and memory tests. There was also a distinct gender difference. Read more.

About the image: The red specks in this brain scan highlight where the integrity of the brain’s white matter is significantly less in the teens who binge drink, compared to those who do not. [Souce: UCSD/NPR]

The brain’s signals are effectively a symphony of electrical impulses, which in turn drive tiny magnetic fields.

Researchers have measured and mapped these fields, in a pursuit known as magnetoencephalography, since the late 1960s. It has already been used to diagnose tinnitus, and can even predict when people will make mistakes.

Apostolos Georgopoulos, at the University of Minnesota in the US, developed the synchronous neural interactions (SNI) approach as a means to mathematically untangle the myriad signals that magnetoencephalography produces. Read more.