The Concussion Blog likes to highlight people, places and things that are helping with the awareness, prevention, identification, management, and rehabilitation of concussions.  I recently had a good Twitter conversation with @ganglion11, known as Jonathan Lifshitz, PhD, whose research and group was responsible for our most popular video, Fencing Response.  I asked him to give me an idea of what he and his group is doing, he wrote below;

The University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center: A Homegrown, Basic Science and Translational Center Dedicated to Developing Novel Treatments for Traumatic Brain and Spinal Cord Injury

In 1999, the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC; http://www.mc.uky.edu/scobirc/) was established at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine to promote individual and collaborative research on injuries to the spinal cord and brain that result in paralysis or other loss of neurologic function. The long-term goal of SCoBIRC is to find treatments for spinal cord and brain injury that are more effective in achieving functional repair of the injured central nervous system. The combination of brain and spinal cord injury investigation sets SCoBIRC apart from its contemporaries.

The creation of SCoBIRC was a direct result of the 1994 state legislation, which established the Kentucky Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Trust (KSCHIRT). KSCHIRT is funded annually by the surcharges on moving violations, violating the mandatory seat belt law and driving under the influence. Competitive research grants from KSCHIRT compensate for the disproportionate allocation of federal research funds towards other less prevalent major diseases. Continue reading →