The local National Veterans Affairs Brain Rehabilitation Research Center of Excellence hosted an open house Tuesday in celebration of a $4.5 million award.
The event featured research projects on brain rehabilitation by 28 VA-funded investigators and 16 affiliate investigators at the Community Living Center building on the campus of the Veteran Affairs medical center.
The award will be dispersed over five years among the brain rehabilitation research consortium, which includes the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, UF, UF Health Shands, UF Health Shands Rehab Hospital and the Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville.
Thomas Wisnieski, the director of the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, congratulated researchers at the event for their dedication to enhancing the lives of veterans and all those affected by traumatic brain injuries.
More than 150 people attended the event, including health science specialist Susan Leon, said Janis Daly, director of the Brain Rehabilitation Center. Leon researches treatment options for patients who have lost the ability to express their emotions due to brain injury.
“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I didn’t have the center,” Leon said.
At the event, Daly explained how out of the 15 centers of excellence around the country, the Gainesville center is the only one focused on brain rehabilitation.
Before research was completed on brain rehabilitation, Dr. Carolyn Hanson, the clinical research coordinator for the center, said many believed that when the brain was in a traumatizing event, it would never recover to its original capacity.
“We’ve debunked that pretty thoroughly,” Hanson said.
These research findings could be crucial for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury that many veterans are experiencing.
“It’s often your parents or your uncles or your aunts that are possibly receiving this treatment,” Leon said.
UF students are also contributing to the brain rehabilitation center’s research.
Five or six students from UF work with the brain rehabilitation center every year, Hanson said.
Dulce Castro, a 27-year-old UF electrical and computer engineering graduate student will be working at the center this year. Castro said she hopes her work, like the work of the researchers at the event, will someday make a difference in people’s lives.
“It’s nice to see all the research work come together and have researchers collaborate,” Castro said.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 9/17/2014 under the headline "VA brain rehab research center celebrates $4.5 million award"]
Thomas Wisnieski, director of North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, and Dr. Janis Daly, director of the Brain Rehabilitation Research Center, speak at the open house Tuesday afternoon.
