National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation (NC NM4R)

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OVERALL – PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Rehabilitation crucially requires interaction with the nervous system. Thus, neuromodulation (NM) is a tool uniquely able to address a large number of conditions and populations through a set of common principles that underlie an emerging neural circuit-based approach to rehabilitation and medicine. Our foundational belief is that applying NM to specific networks offers outstanding promise for advancing and improving nearly all fields of rehabilitation. While having grown over the past five years, the field of NM for rehabilitation (NM4R – the combination of NM and rehabilitation) is still nascent and is just beginning to clinically impact the practice of rehabilitation. The renewal of the National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation (NC NM4R) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) builds upon our early successes to facilitate the key steps in the discovery process that are required to develop the next generation of NM4R interventions and to use these tools to understand and study neuroplastic nervous system changes associated with rehabilitation. The center harnesses outstanding expertise in non-invasive NM, rehabilitation, operant conditioning of brain and spinal networks and animal models of NM4R. teams have formed a cohesive NM4R Community, returning to our center for multiple workshops and hands-on training experiential sessions, receiving follow-on consultations leading to pilot awards and extramural funding, and have publishing in peer-reviewed journals. The overarching goal over the new grant period is to impact multiple priorities of the NIH Research Plan for Rehabilitation (RPR) – most notably to translational science, pediatric rehabilitation and research design and methodology – by increasing rehabilitation research workforce access to NM4R approaches and supporting rigorous clinical research to translate them into effective, evidence-based rehabilitation interventions. Our Specific Aims are to: AIM 1. Increase the size and diversity of the rehabilitation research workforce with access to NM4R approaches; and AIM 2. Increase the impact of NM4R approaches. In the proposed renewal, our center will design yearly strategic activities to focus on impacting RPR priorities. Adjacent fields such as psychiatry are more advanced in applying NM tools in an emerging circuit-based medical model. NC NM4R will serve a vital purpose by infusing NM skills throughout the rehabilitation workforce and ensuring early exposure to the cutting edge of NM research for rehabilitation researchers in all domains.