Collaboration and research areas

• Brain Activation Caused by Pain

  The nervous system is also an area of investigation. One study involves brain activation caused by pain and the signal attenuation over time within activated areas of the brain. The amount and duration of pain signal attenuation over time was examined. We found significant differences between pain and tingling in the ipsilateral cerebellum, contralateral thalamus, secondary somatosensory cortex, primary somatosensory cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. Highly significant signal decay was found to exist across each single pain task, but the signal was found to be restored after a four-minute rest period. This work shows that serial pain tasks can be used for functional magnetic resonance imaging studies using electrical nerve stimulation as a stimulus, as long as sufficient time is allowed between the two tasks.

• Gastrointestinal Nervous System

  Another line of investigation involves the gastrointestinal nervous system (the human enteric nervous system). In this research, we are determining the effects of histamine on gastric mobility and complications in bowel disease by establishing the mechanisms by which histamine alters nerve function. We are establishing the localization of specific histaminergic receptor subtypes to functionally identified neurons in the human enteric nervous system.

• Ischemic Spinal Cord Injury Studies

  The department is also conducting ischemic spinal cord injury studies in thoracic aortic aneurysm patients and animal models. The department's completion of a wireless telemetry informatics suite (operating room model) enables the system to be used at Ohio State's Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital. This telemetry informatics suite includes high-security military grade encryption and the implementation of Microsoft's new web services. The success of the project is such that Microsoft has decided to showcase this work at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center on an international level.

• Additional research areas

  • Cardiovascular research
  • GI and CNS research
  • Optical imaging techniques
  • Myocardial monitoring
  • Molecular biology
  • Second messenger systems
  • Animal models of disease for vascular
  • Peripheral vascular
  • Atherosclerosis
  • Heart failure/bio-impedance and inflammatory bowel disease to preconditioning in humans with supportive animal studies ongoing
  • System response during disease states by purine receptors and c-reactive proteins
  • Effects of down-regulation of b-receptors in heart failure and their influence on clinical management
  • Critical care medicine
  • Extracorporeal life support (ECLS and ECMO)