NEUROREHABILITATION NEWSFall 2011

Page 1 - Neurorhabilitation News

Anna Barrett

Fall is here, and with the crisp weather comes a new sense of purpose and resolve. We’re seeing this in the vigor of ASNR at the end of 2011—with membership growth, a new

Finance Committee and Website Committee Chair, and a symposium with the Society of Neurosciences, “The New Science of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation,” on November 11th, in Washington, DC, for which a healthy number of neuroscientist colleagues are already registered.

Neurorehabilitation is an intellectual specialty, allowing us the opportunity to analyze problems, and dynamically improve our solutions as the basic science of neuroregeneration grows. Working as co-chair of the NINDS Stroke Progress Review Group in Recovery and Rehabilitation with Steve Cramer of UC Irvine and Pam Duncan of Wake Forest, I had the privilege of reading and co-editing reviews of research progress in rehabilitation since 2007 written by some of the luminaries in our field—and many of our ASNR members. Just as we rarely take the time to sit back and take stock of our personal progress, we too rarely look at how far we have come since 2000, when the Stroke Progress Review Group made its recommendations to stimulate

better stroke care, including only a very short section on rehabilitation. I reflected that the research priorities recommended when the SPRG was re-evaluated at its halfway point (Stroke 2008; 39:1364-1370) encompass all of the areas of research activity of members of ASNR, including studies of the neurobiology of recovery, randomized controlled trials of rehabilitative interventions, work to define which neurologic symptoms are disabling, evaluation of compensatory devices, and cognitive rehabilitation.

We hope you will be joining us at our annual meeting, held jointly this year with ACRM in Atlanta, Georgia. There will be a terrific preconference meeting on Wednesday, October 12th, on noninvasive brain stimulation: ASNR leaders Cathrin Buetefisch and Leonardo Cohen have a stellar faculty including one of my role models, Branch Coslett, along with excellent clinician scientists William Kelly, Gottfried Schlaug, and our ASNR Treasurer/Secretary, George Wittenberg. This outstanding event will be linked with a hands-on transcranial magnetic stimulation workshop presented by Dr Buetefisch with Andrew Butler. We owe special thanks to these members for their efforts!

Enjoy the rest of 2011. In 2012, we are looking forward to building a financially stronger organization—with your help!

President’s MessageThe ASNR: A Translational Think Tank!

The journal continues to fare well. We are receiving 500 submissions a year and accepting about 20%. The majority of these submissions come from Europe (Britain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Germany) and Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China), then Canada and Australia/New Zealand. We have been receiving better quality RCTs. The most common causes for rejection are lack of novelty, small number of subjects, off theme, and lab studies (regeneration, drug use) without behavioral/translational components.

Gert Kwakkel (European editor), Tom Carmichael (basic science editor) and Barbara Weissman (ASNR new and features), along with the associate editors and board, have been a great help. About half of all articles recommended for acceptance by reviewers then require moderate editing ½ hr - 3 hrs work) for language, queries to authors, focusing ideas, reducing length, and correcting statistics. About 60% of accepted articles go through 2 or more revisions by the authors.

For 2010, NNR was ranked #1/43 rehab and # 37/186 neurology journals. The citation factor was 3.7 (5.4 in 2009). The 5-yr factor is 3.9. The staggeringly high 5.4 was related to rising citations but fewer published articles in 2007-08. The number of citations in the 2010 to articles published in 2008 and 2009 was higher than in 2009, but we published 30 more papers than in 2007. I expect to level out around 3.8-4.2 for the next few years as access to NNR improves.

Rehabilitation-related articles are far les likely to be cited as quickly as basic science papers or excellent reviews. Please include NNR papers in your own publications.

I am starting my 7th year as editor. We should consider candidates to take my place for the year 2013 or 2014 at the latest. Candidates should be single geeks with no weekend or evening obligations.

Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair

The ASNR is offering a discount on initial membership through the beginning of the 2011 annual meeting. Invite your colleagues to join and they will receive a 37% discount! To join ASNR, please visit www.asnr.com.

Join ASNR Now!

NEUROREHABILITATION NEWSFall 2011

Page 2 - Neurorhabilitation News

Again, I would like to thank the 2011 ASNR committee members Richard Bohannon, Stanley Thomas Carmichael, Jim Lynskey, Douglas Katz, Richard Macko, Michael Reding, Michael Weinrich and Barbara Weissman for making the 2011 ACRM/ASNR Joint Education Conference in Atlanta an exciting event. Noteworthy is also the excellent collaboration with the ACRM committee members. We continued having the monthly phone conference calls during which we discussed the conference template, the poster session, the conference registration, and the responsibilities/tasks amongst the conference organizers. With a few more weeks until the start of the conference, I have the following updates:

1. We have the highest number of persons registered ever for the ACRM/ASNR conference. By now more than 511 individuals are registered with surpasses last year’s conference attendance in Montreal, which was the largest ACRM-ASNR meeting ever.

2. Overall, we have accepted 6 pre-conference workshops, close to 40 symposium and 165 poster submissions. There were more submissions compared to last year and the quality of the submissions was excellent. The exhibitor’s welcome reception and poster viewing and award session is scheduled on Thursday October 13th, 2011, from 5:30-7:00pm. Douglas Katz, Jim Lynskey, Mary Stuart, and I will be reviewing the posters. At

6:30pm the awards will be presented. This will be a very festive happening.

3. The ASNR plenary session will take place on the Thursday morning, the first conference day. As I mentioned in my previous newsletter contribution, we are really pleased that Dr. Carolee Winstein has accepted the invitation by the ASNR conference committee to organize a plenary session on “The Future of Clinical Trials in Stroke Neurorehabilitation: Rationale, Challenges, and Opportunities for Innovative Approaches”. Dr. Randolph J. Nudo, will present the ASNR Outstanding Neurorehabilitation Clinician-Scientist Lecture titled “Neuroprosthetic Tools for Repair of the Injured Brain”. Dr. Michael Weinrich will present the Kenneth M. Viste, Jr., MD Memorial Lectureship titled “Neurorehabilitation Approaching the End of the Beginning?”.

4. The Sheperd Center in Atlanta will support the conference by organizing the Gala (incl. award session). The event will be combined with the ACRM President Reception and will take place in the Aquarium. There will be several bars and heavy hors’douvres spread throughout the aquarium.

Robert C. WagenaarASNR Program Chair

2011 ASNR Conference Program Committee

ASNR Foundation Report

ASNR Board of DirectorsPresidentAnna Barrett, MD

Vice President Krish Sathian, MD, PhD

Secretary/TreasurerGeorge Wittenberg, MD, PhD

Immediate Past PresidentMichael Reding, MD

Gary Abrmas, MDDavid Alexander, MDCynthia Danells, PTJudith Deutsch, PhD, PTBruce Dobkin, MD (Editor-in-Chief)Gail Ann Eskes, PhDAlbert Lo, MD, PhDRandolph Nudo, PhDStephen Page, PhDKeith Tansey, MD, PhDRobert Wagenaar, PhDCarolee Winstein, PhD, PT, FAPTASteven Wolf, PhDStuart Yablon, MDNathan Zasler, MD

ASNR CommitteesProgram CommitteeChair – Robert Wagenaar, PhD

Liaison CommitteeChair – Krish Sathian, MD, PhD

Membership CommitteeChair – Barbara Weissman, MD

Finance CommitteeChair – Bruce Rubin, MD

Fellowship CommitteeChair – Jonathan Fellus, MD

Practice CommitteeChair – Jeff Samuels, MD

Website CommitteeChair - Aninda Acharya, MD/MSPH

Membership Dues

It is not too late to pay your 2011 dues. To pay your dues, please visit www.asnr.com.

Thank you!

The ASNR Foundation Board is pleased to have selected our two awardees for this years meeting. Our selection for Outstanding Neurorehabilitation Scientist is Dr. Randy Nudo, PhD. We selected Dr. Michael Weinrich, MD to present this year’s Viste Award Lecture.

A review of our ASNR Foundation Financial Statements for the past 8 months ending August 31st, 2011 shows that the Foundation

has Assets totaling $97,636.36. This total includes expenses of $733.09 and received interest income and donations totaling $968.78.

As always our Board of Directors and ASNR Members are encouraged to donate to our Not-For-Profit Foundation as a means of supporting our Education and Research Mission.

Register online: www.asnr.com

ASNR Satellite: Brain Repair and Rehabilitation

ofThe New Science

Brain Repair and Rehabilitationof

The New Science

CNS Physiology in Recovery of Function after Injury or “Back to the Mechanisms”

Meeting Format: After the keynote speaker there will be six presentations from investigators in training. This will be followed by a general discussion of the current state of neurophysiological research in rehabilitation and strategies for funding and publishing such work. There will be a poster session at the end of the meeting and all registered attendees will be welcome to present their SfN or any other poster.

Held in conjunction with the Society for Neuroscience 41st annual meeting

FridayNovember 11, 2011

Washington, DC

8:30 am – 2:00 pm Course Directors:George Wittenberg, MD, PhD

&John Krakauer, MD

Keynote Speaker: Leonardo Cohen, MD

Walter E. Washington Convention Center,

Room 151AB

NEUROREHABILITATION NEWSFall 2011

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During the past year, the American Brain Coalition has partnered with Congressman Patrick Kennedy for the development and community awareness of the Congressman’s program designed to study the neuroscience issues that could unravel the mysteries of the brain in the same way as the was seen in the ‘decoding of the human genome’ project. This program has been named ……..

ONe MIND FOR ReSeARCh

From Monday, May 23 through Wednesday, May 25, 2011, an extraordinary event took place in Boston that brought together researchers, health advocates and politicians to mount a concerted challenge to solving what has been called the final frontier of medicine: the human brain.

The One Mind for Research Forum (OMR) was dedicated to imagining the next decade of neuroscience research and development. The forum was the brainchild of Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who was joined by OMR co-chair Garen Staglin and Harvard Provost Steven Hyman in organizing a scintillating scientific meeting that has been called a moonshot to the mind. The moonshot reference derives from President John F. Kennedy’s challenge 50 years ago to send a man to the moon and back. As JFK’s nephew, Patrick Kennedy felt that this audacious program might be a model for galvanizing a similar scientific movement: One Mind for Research.

The first two days of the forum were filmed by The Science Network. We would like to acknowledge a significant grant from The Dana Foundation, which made this possible, as well as a series of additional Science Studio conversations with key participants including the directors of three National Institutes. Dana has been, and remains, a powerful force for good in increasing understanding of neuroscience, education, and the arts – a mission which dovetails with TSN’s mission of building an accessible ‘public square’ where scientists discuss their work and its relevance to society. The first Science Studio presentations on TSN were funded by an early grant from Dana, and it is very gratifying to witness this continuing collaboration. TSN acknowledges in particular the support and enthusiasm of Dana Chairman and President Edward Rover and Vice President, Public Affairs/Executive Director, Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, Barbara Gill.

Topics covered during this conference included: Perception, Neuropsychiatric Diseases, The Connectome: Mapping the Brain, Opportunities in Translational Neuroscience, BrainGate: Neural Interfaces, Neurological Consequences of War, Emotion and Motivation, Alzheimer’s Disease, Learning and Memory, and Movement.

From a personal perspective, I must tell you that the lectures and discussions were enthralling. This was a wonderful start to a project with so much potential.

Recent developments were described at a meeting held by One Mind for Research, which was designed to brief the Washington healthcare advocacy community on what the effort is doing and has been doing since the May meeting in Boston. Amy Comstock Rick opened the session and introduced Patrick Kennedy.

Kennedy made the points concerning “neuroscience needs political science” and “working together.” He went through the patriotic aspects of “our soldiers and our heroes” and described the effort as part of our “overarching national security interest.” He then introduced Magali Haas, Ph.D., a neuroscientist from Johnson & Johnson who is “on loan” to One Mind.

Dr. Haas was a very strong presenter and made the following major points:

* Scientists believe that debilitating diseases can be tackled.

* Our goal is to unite information into one comprehensive model of disease.

* Currently research is not incentivized to unite information; thus it is fragmented.

* Our goal is to advance prevention and cures by the end of the decade.

* We will focus on Awareness, Science and Technology, and Policy.

* As a trusted third party, One Mind will be the convenor.

* We want to create Disease Knowledge Networks - comprehensive data exchange networks to integrate data.

* We are creating a One Mind/One Voice Directory and Network comprised of existing biorepositories, registries, etc.

American Brain Coalition and ‘One Mind for Research’

* We are building a Human Brain Atlas and seeking to advance brain imaging.

* She acknowledged serious cultural challenges, particularly trying to move from acute care to prevention.

Garen Staglin then spoke. He described One Mind’s role as being to connect the existing dots of data and research, not create new dots. He acknowledged that they have not been very good about communicating since May - but that will change. (Jon Sack told me after the meeting that in addition to Dr. Haas, J&J has given them access to Porter Novelli.) He said that they are currently exploring a partnership with the New York Academy of Science and that, eventually, they will do some grassroots activities and fundraising to create this umbrella. He described NIH as being “full partners” in this effort, although they can’t do policy or fundraising. He then said that they are looking for policy ideas and that the American Brain Coalition is our “partner” in policy. “What we do in that area we will do through ABC.”

All members of ASNR have to opportunity to learn and benefit and even participate in the activities of the OMR project.

Please visit the One Mind website, ‘www.1mind4research.org’ where you can learn more about the project and watch the May forum lectures as downloads.

You should also visit the ABC website, ‘www.americanbraincoalition.org’, and sign up for our twitter messages concerning the variety of advocacy issues we are supporting.

Jeff Samuels

The ASNR website (www.asnr.com) is a great source of information for members, health professionals, and patients. Over the coming year we plan to add additional content for both providers and patients and make it a one stop source for information about upcoming events, ongoing neurorehabilitation research, career opportunities, and patient education material. We encourage you to check out the website and find out what is going on in your ASNR.

ASNR Website

NEUROREHABILITATION NEWSFall 2011

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SIRRACT – feedback from wireless ankle accelerometers that detect the type, quantity and quality of lower extremity activities.

Hypothesis: In moderate to severely disabled subjects who are receiving inpatient stroke rehabilitation, feedback 3 times a week about :

• Number of repetitions of exercises • Walking speed • Distance walked • Number of steps taken each day

. . .will result in:

• A 30% or greater increase in the amount of active practice.

• A higher proportion of subjects who reach the level of independence for walking.

• An increase in walking speed by 25%, leading to higher mean walking speeds and distances at the time of discharge from inpatient rehabilitation.

Participants started entering subjects July, 2011.

Clinical Trials Outreach

Clinical Trials Initiative

Institution Country Primary Investigator

National Taiwan University Taiwan Ssu-Yuan Chen, MD

Washington University, St. Louis USA Catherine Lang, PhD

University Hospital of Vigo Spain Francisco J. Juan, MD, PhD

Gazi University Faculty of Medicine Turkey Gulcin Kaymak Karatas, MD

Morinomiya Hospital, Osaka Japan Ichiro Miyai, MD, PhD

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN USA Allen Brown, MD

IRCSS San Camillo Italy Paolo Tonin, MD

Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital, Worcester, MA

USA Corey LeBlanc, PT/Jacqueline Brennan, PT

Chonnam National University Korea Sam-Gyu Lee, MD

Ain Shams University Hospital Egypt Tamer Emara, MD

Father Muller Medical College India Narasimman Swaminathan, MPT

University College Hospital, Ibadan Nigeria Mayowa Owolabi, MD

National Rehabilitation Hospital, Rochestown

Ireland Aine Carroll, MD

Hospital de L’Esperanca, Sant Josep de la Muntanya

Spain Esther Duarte-Oller, MD

IRCSS San Raffaele Italy Silvia Mammi, MD

Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center USA Ziyad Ayyoub, MD

St. Luke’s Hospital, Bethlehem, PA USA Robert Coni, DO

Burwood Hospital, Christchurch New Zealand

John Maasch, MD

Burke Rehabilitation Hospital USA M Reding, MD et al

Mr. Todd Bulson, Certification Manager at UCNS provided the following update concerning the status of our ASNR sponsored certification for physicians in Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

“The Core curriculum and exam eligibility criteria and practice track documents will be presented to the UCNS board at the upcoming board of directors meeting on October 14, 2011. I anticipate the board approving both documents without issue. The very next week I will then have both documents posted on the UCNS website along with the exam content outline. In the meantime I am working with the exam committee to start the item writing. I have just set the date for our first face-to-face meeting that will take place on November 4, 2011. At this meeting we will review questions and determine which will be kept for the exam. We will hold a second meeting in the spring of 2012 to review and make the final selection of questions from a pool of questions assembled by the exam committee.”

Update on the Status of UCNS Physician Certification for Neurorehabilitation

Committee Members: Theresa Pape, Prudence Plummer and Judy Deutsch

The Clinical Trials initiative has morphed into the Low-Cost Multi-Site Research initiative. We expanded our scope to include epidemiological studies. We believe that description of practice is as important as efficacy trials.

Our group developed and administered a short survey (thanks to Shannon Wild for her assistance) to identify folks who are interested in vetting and administering the guidelines by which the ASNR will endorse low cost multi-site research initiatives. The guidelines will be presented to the ASNR board at the upcoming 2012 meeting, If you are interested in either being a site where the research can be conducted or initiating a project, please let Shannon Wild know.

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N E W ! CME/CEUs for 9 Disciplines Henry B. Betts Awards Gala at the Georgia Aquarium

AMEriCAn ConGrEss of rEHABilitAtion MEDiCinE. Questions? +1.317.471.8760.

www.ACRM.org/annualconference

OctOber 11 – 15, 2011 / Hyatt regency / atlanta, geOrgIa

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