Center Projects and Research Labs

The Biomarkers of Stroke Recovery Lab at the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery is directed by Matthew Edwardson, MD and includes researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center and MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. The goal of the Biomarkers of Stroke Recovery Lab is to define how the human brain repairs itself both molecularly and structurally after stroke and in response to rehabilitation therapy. This knowledge will then be used to develop new drugs to help people recover more fully from stroke-related disability.

The Cognitive Recovery Lab is part of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University Medical Center and the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. Our research aims to improve the lives of people with cognitive and language difficulties by expanding our understanding of:

1. how the brain performs language and cognitive functions,
2. how these brain systems change in the face of injury or dysfunction,
3. how we can improve recovery.

The Comprehensive Stroke Clinic Project at the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery is lead by Dr. M. Carter Denny, MD, MPH and includes patients, families and researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital.

The Learning and Development Lab is part of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University. We study the acquisition of language, the relationship between language acquisition and language structure, and the recovery of language after damage to the brain. 

The Christoph Ruesch Neuroscience Research Center at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital is dedicated to implementing initiatives that probe new rehabilitative interventions, address the health and rehabilitative needs of persons with disabilities, and develop better ways to deliver and pay for these services. Since its inception, the NRC has established a broad-based research program dedicated to stroke outcomes and recovery, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and the impact of cardiovascular disease across the spectrum of neurologic disabilities.

The Pediatric Stroke Research Project at the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery includes researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center, MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, Children’s National Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We use assessments of language, visuo-spatial processing, and other cognitive abilities, in combination with functional brain imaging (fMRI), to study how the developing brain recovers from strokes that occur in infancy and early childhood – and how this process of recovery compares to recovery after strokes in adults. Our goal is to understand the processes underlying recovery in the developing and adult brain, and to develop techniques that can stimulate and support recovery in children and adults.

The Right Hemisphere Emotion, Cognition, and Recovery (RHECO) Lab at the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery investigates the long-term changes in cognition and emotion that can result from a stroke to the adult brain. Our goal is to better understand what these changes are, how they are related to changes in the brain, how they impact every-day life for stroke survivors and the people around them, and what might be done to reduce this impact.

The Sensory and Motor Plasticity (SAMP) Lab utilizes state-of-the-art behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to study people who experienced early sensory and motor deprivation: people born blind, deaf or without hands. This allows us to explore the general principles of how our brain represents information beyond sensory and motor specifics and how it develops and adapts based on experience.

The Sign Language Research Lab is part of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University. We study American Sign Language acquisition, processing and history, and the evolution and structure of homesign, international pidgin sign and signed languages of the world.