NIH Research Festival 2012 Program - Research Festival - National ...

Concurrent Symposia Session III
Natcher Conference Center
Conference Room E1/E2
Imaging traumatic brain injury:
Challenges and solutions
Co-chairs: Amir H. Gandjbakhche, NICHD; and
Paul Smith, NIBIB
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Approximately 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury annually. 300,000
veterans in Iraq/Afghanistan wars experienced TBI, mostly mild. Injuries range from
severe structural damages detected in (MRI/CT) imaging, to those injuries which exhibit
normal structural imaging but manifest different levels of cognitive deficits such as memory
problems, reduced attention, inability to concentrate on a single task. The poor quality
of life associated with TBI, create severe morbidities in all aspects of patient life (family,
work, and society), and cost billions of dollars. Accurate diagnosis and classification
of TBI are becoming a critical need for personalized therapy. However, phenotyping
TBI is still a huge challenge. Imaging methods, both structural and functional, could
play an important role for phenotype classification. In this symposium we will address
the role of imaging techniques for TBI diagnosis and therapy.
James Smirniotopoulos, USUHS
Imaging TBI: Known knowns and unknown unknowns
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, USUHS
Endophenotypes of traumatic brain injury: Implications for the next generation
of clinical trials
Lawrence Latour, NINDS
The CNRM traumatic head injury neuroimaging classification (THINC) study:
Steps toward the objective diagnosis and classification of TBI
Amir Gandjbakhche, NICHD
Imaging cognitive function with near infrared spectroscopy for TBI diagnosis
Emily Wood, NINDS
Detecting axonal degeneration in multiple sclerosis with diffusion weighted spectroscopy
FARE Award Winner
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