Nemours Neurologist Wins Major Nih Award To Study Hippocampal Dysfunction In Brain Disorders

Rodney Scott, MBChB, MRCP, DipStat, PhD, Division Chief of Neurology, Nemours Children's Health, Delaware Valley, has received a prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's Transformative Research Award. Dr. Scott will usage nan $2.6 million, five-year assistance to analyse malfunctions successful nan brain's hippocampal region, aiming to place patterns that could lead to shared therapies for patients pinch autism, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's disease.

"In disorders for illustration autism, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's, nan portion of nan encephalon called nan hippocampus doesn't usability properly. Current treatments target each illness separately, often pinch constricted success," Dr. Scott explained.

Instead, our investigation will look for shared abnormal encephalon activity patterns crossed conditions. If found, we will create caller methods of encephalon stimulation that could reconstruct patient hippocampal usability crossed a scope of disorders."

Dr. Rodney Scott, MBChB, MRCP, DipStat, PhD, Division Chief of Neurology, Nemours Children's Health, Delaware Valley

The NIH Transformative Research Awards beforehand cross-cutting, interdisciplinary approaches, supporting high-risk, high-reward investigation that could perchance create caller paradigms for knowing illness and processing caller therapies and preventive strategies.

Dr. Scott's task will analyse patterns of dysfunction successful nan hippocampus, nan region of nan encephalon that regulates representation and emotions. The investigation is based connected nan mentation that autism, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's whitethorn stock nan aforesaid faulty mechanism-specifically, a disruption successful nan brain's neural networks. Through his NIH award, Dr. Scott and co-principal interrogator Matt Mahoney, PhD, Principal Computational Scientist pinch nan Jackson Laboratory successful Bar Harbor, Maine, will devise surviving and machine models to pinpoint nan disruption. Dr. Scott's investigation squad will cod biologic data, while Dr. Mahoney and colleagues will lead nan effort to create mathematical models. Together, nan investigators will beryllium capable to analyse a precocious measurement of information and perchance accelerate nan gait of discovery.

Dr. Scott joined Nemours Children's successful 2021, continuing an accomplished profession that has spanned hospitals successful Zimbabwe, England, and nan United States. He has made groundbreaking advances successful nan curen and guidance of epilepsy, arsenic good arsenic nan exertion of analyzable adaptive systems theories to neurological disease. In summation to his station astatine Nemours Children's, he is simply a Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics astatine Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University; and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering astatine nan University of Delaware.

"This high-risk, high-reward support from nan NIH allows investigators for illustration Dr. Scott to create and rigorously trial innovative ideas that are not successful nan mainstream," said Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Physician-in-Chief, and Chief Scientific Officer, Nemours Children's Health. "Through this research, it whitethorn beryllium imaginable to amended cognitive usability and value of life for patients pinch a wide scope of neurological conditions, successful puerility and adulthood. This task demonstrates Nemours Children's committedness to investigation and world excellence successful nan pursuit of advancing subject and improving wellness outcomes for generations to come."