Our Mission and Vision

The vision of our program is to become the best training program of its kind in the country, from the standpoint of the ability of our trainees to translate basic neuroscience into clinical neurorehabilitation research and practice. Our program focuses on applications of the field of neuroscience, neurology and bioengineering research, which has expanded markedly over the last decade. In this way, our program fulfills a national need to transfer science and technology more quickly to the bedside. Our program is distinctive, in that it has a substantial number of researchers who work in the general area of brain plasticity and recovery—a field that is fundamental to all of neurorehabilitation. The heavy focus on pediatric neurorehabilitation fits well with the plasticity theme and is another special feature of our program.

The goals of the program are to: 1) train clinicians and basic scientists who will go on to make important contributions that advance the rehabilitation of patients with brain and spinal cord injuries and other neurological disabilities; 2) equip these trainees with the skills needed to become independent grant-funded investigators. The focus of the training program is on a mentored period of hypothesis-driven translational clinical and/or laboratory based research. Faculty have expertise in one or more of three major rehabilitation themes: 1) CNS plasticity and recovery; 2) pediatric brain injury rehabilitation; 3) stroke rehabilitation.