Keep Up-to-Date on Faculty Research
Research Grants|Recent Publications
In this section, we highlight recent scholarly activities of the Occupational Therapy
Program faculty.
Dr. Dorothy Edwards is
the PI of the Minority Recruitment Satellite Program for the newly funded University
of Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. UW has received 5 year of funding
for this research program. UW is now one of 29 NIH funded Alzheimer's Disease Centers.
The UW Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Application was funded by the National
Institute on Aging (NIA) as of April 1. Funding is from 2009-2014. Sanjay Asthana
MD is the Principal Investigator, National Institute on Aging.
Dr. Ruth Benedict was awarded a 2 year, $100,000.00
grant from the Cerebral Palsy International Research Foundation to study the effects
of intrathecal Baclofen Pump (ITB) treatment on health, well-being and participation
of persons with cerebral palsy and their caregivers. June 2008.
Kinesiology Associate Professor Dorothy Edwards has just received
funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (NINDS) to
study disparities in stroke recovery in African Americans. This five-year grant,
the Stroke Disparities Program Project, was awarded to a team of investigators lead
by Dr. Chelsea Kidwell of the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University.
In addition to Edwards, other investigators representing Johns Hopkins University,
Howard University and the University of Michigan have come together to address the
problems of greater stroke-related mortality and poorer outcomes in African Americans
with stroke. The Stroke Disparities project will test community education programs
designed to decrease the time from symptom onset to treatment, study the effects
of microhemorrahges on stroke outcome, and conduct a randomized controlled trial
of the effects on community health workers trained as health care navigators on
secondary prevention practices in persons after first ischemic stroke. Professor
Edwards is the Principal Investigator of the Patient Recruitment, Retention, Behavioral
Intervention and Outcomes Core. Through this project she will extend her studies
of the effects of stroke on occupational performance and quality of life. She hopes
to integrate UW MS OT students and students from the OT program at Howard University
into her research.
Mary Schneider has received two $3.4 million grants from NIH to
continue her studies at UW-Madison's Harlow Center for Biological Psychology. Dr.
Schneider has found that when a pregnant monkey drinks even relatively moderate
amounts of alcohol, the dopamine system of her offspring is altered. Early in life,
the offspring show problems in attention, motor maturity, stress and coping.
Later, during adolescence, they are slower to learn. In the next five years, she
will follow these monkeys - as well as prenatally-stressed monkeys - into adulthood
and study the dopamine system using PET technology (D1 receptor binding and dopamine
transporter binding in prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, putamen and caudate
and cognitive performance dependent on dopaminergic function). She will also examine
cerebral uptake of FDG, which is like glucose, in prefrontal cortex after cognitive
testing compared to a control state, to examine brain systems under dynamic conditions.
She will assess response to repetitive tactile stimulation and pre-pulse inhibition.
This is based on the role of dopamine underlying sensorimotor gating and also on
clinical evidence of unusual sensory processing in children at our FAS Clinic at
the Waisman Center. She will also examine whether fetal-alcohol exposed monkeys
are at greater risk than controls for excessive alcohol consumption in adulthood.
Beth Larson has received $22.055 grant for the Vilas Life Cycle
Professorship Award from the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute.These
funds will provide support for a research assistant and phlebotomist for a pilot
study examining potential biological markers accounting for the premature aging
of stressed caregivers of children with disabilities when compared to the low-stress
group (Epel et al, 2004). There are two promising biomarkers that may elucidate
biological mechanisms that differentiate the vulnerable from the resilient group
in regards to advanced aging or diminished health. The serotonin has been identified
as a key genetic alteration in mental health disorders (Hammer et al., 1999; Lesch,
2004; Murphy et al., 2004). The short allele variations in the serotonin transporter
gene promoter (5-HTTLPR) have been associated with anxiety-related personality traits,
social impairments, and psychopathology (Hammer et al., 1999; Lesch et al., 1996).
When a series of significant life events occurred greater depression was noted in
individuals with the short 5-HTTLPR allele. Some suggest this genetic alteration
“prekindles” depressive episodes. In addition the biomarker Interleukin-6
is being used as an indicator of health and immune system functioning. Elevations
of IL-6 occur in response to psychosomatic and somatic stress; this is likely one
mechanism by which vulnerable high-stress caregivers experience diminished health
compared to the more resilient group.
Recent Publications
Mary Schneider, Ph.D., OTR
and colleagues have a study recently published in the January/February 2008 issue
of Child Develoment. The title of the article is Sensory Processing Disorder
in a Primate Model: Evidence from a Longitudinal Study of Prenatal Alcohol and Prenatal
Stress Effects.This study finds that moderate prenatal exposure to alcohol and stress
can lead to sensitivity to touch in monkeys. Implications for mothers of childbearing
age are discussed. The online version can be found at:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01113.x
Ruth Benedict, Dr.P.H., OTR recently had an article published in the January,
2008 issue of Pediatrics. Title of the article is Quality Medical Homes:
Meeting Children's Needs for Therapeutic and Supportive Services. The purpose of
the study was to determine in children with special health care needs the association
between the quality of their medical home and access to therapy and supportive services.
The online version can be found at:
http:www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/121/1/e127.