Rodents and Recovery with Behavioral Neuroscientist Dr. Theresa A. Jones

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Rodents and Recovery with Behavioral Neuroscientist Dr. Theresa A. Jones

PETE: So one of the things I find interesting about fMRI’s...it doesn’t directly measure neuroplastic change and I always thought you would have to get really lucky drilling a hole through the skull, through the meninges and somehow get a very big microscope and see actual synaptogenesis and you’d have to get very lucky that those neurons just happen to get connected at that point. But you’re saying in this model they glow green and you can see that process happening in individual neurons?

DR. JONES: I feel so lucky to have lived long enough for these techniques in neuroscience that I had nothing to do with to be dropped into my lap. Yeah these, they’re transgenic mice that seem to be normal except they have been manipulated to have fluorescent proteins expressed in a subset of their cortical neurons, so that you can see the dendritic barbers of the cortical neurons either through thin skull or through implanted windows. And so you can watch the same parts of a neuron over time and see how they change and because you have the windows are big, you look at a whole big dendritic field and at least with cortical changes in response to learning new ways of moving, those changes seem not just to be in one neuron. I mean there’s crazy activity that gets instigated and, after a stroke, there’s crazy activity...by activity I don’t mean activity...I mean structural changes in neurons. A structural neural plasticity um is just explosive in response to strokes because that’s the remodeling process.

EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode of NOGGINS & NEURONS: Brain Injury Recovery Simplified, Pete and Deb engage in stimulating conversation with Dr. Theresa A. Jones, a behavioral neuroscientist from University of Texas at Austin. We talk about:

• Translating research from bench side to bedside and what that means in terms of informing clinical practice and brain injury recovery

• writing, which is a skill

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Dr. Jones. She is a true delight and makes information about brain research and stroke recovery understandable.

As always, we want to hear your top takeaways!

LINKS TO ARTICLES, BOOKS AND OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Theresa A. Jones, PhD Articles:

Jones TA (2017) Motor compensation and its effects on neural reorganization after stroke. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 18:267-280.

Clark TA, Sullender C, Jacob D, Zuo Y, Dunn AK & Jones TA (2019) Rehabilitative training interacts with ischemia instigated spine dynamics to promote a lasting population of new synapses in peri-infarct motor cortex.  Journal of Neuroscience, 39: 8471-848

Dutcher AM, Truong KV, Miller DD, Allred RP, Nudi E & Jones TA (2021) Training in a cooperative bimanual skilled reaching task, the popcorn retrieval task, improves unimanual function after motor cortical infarcts in rats. Behavioural Brain Research, 396:

Dorothy A. Kozlowski, PhD and Theresa A. Jones, PhD Articles:

Use-Dependent Structural Events in Recovery of Function

Use Dependent Exaggeration of Neuronal Injury After Unilateral Sensorimotor Cortex Lesions

Use Dependent Exacerbation of Brain Damage Occurs During an Early Post-Lesion Vulnerable Period

Neural Plasticity and Neural Rehabilitation Following Traumatic Brain Injury

Combinatorial Motor Training Results in Functional Reorganization of Remaining Motor Cortex After Controlled Cortical Impact in Rats

Combining Multiple Types of Motor Rehabilitation Enhances Skilled Forelimb Use Following Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats

Learned Non-Use Article

Barth, J., Geed, S., Mitchell, A., Lum, P. S., Edwards, D. F., & Dromerick, A. W. (2020). Characterizing upper extremity motor behavior in the first week after stroke. PloS one, 15(8), e0221668. 

VECTORS trial

• Dr. Jones's talk: Tribulations in Translation from the Preclinical Side of Stroke Neurorehabilitation 

Questions and Comments about the podcast?

• [email protected]

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Pete’s blog, book, Stronger After Stroke, and talks.

• Blog

Deb's OT Resources:

• Deb's OT resources

REQUEST TO BE A GUEST ON NOGGINS & NEURONS. If you’re passionate about stroke recovery and have information or a story you believe will help others, we’d love help you share it on the show. Complete the guest request form below and let’s see if we’re a good fit!   Guest Request Form

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