Neuropsychology

Research

The philosophy of the Neuropsychology program is that ongoing clinical research is critical to the development and maintenance of the highest standards of care. There is a reciprocal relationship between clinical care and research, in that research programs should enhance clinical care, and clinical needs should drive research questions. Diverse research efforts that contribute to direct efforts to improve patient care as well as further our general understanding of cognitive functioning and the processes that govern development and recovery of cognition form the basis of our research programs.

The research efforts of the clinical faculty have yielded direct and immediate benefits to the care of neurologically impaired patients. Improvement of the selection criteria for the surgical treatment of the epilepsies has been a major emphasis of the Neuropsychology service. Pioneering research in structure function relationships has enhanced not only surgical selection, but prediction of surgical outcome with respect to cognition.

Other research efforts emphasize interdisciplinary and multicenter collaboration in epilepsy research. The Yale Neuropsychology program is one of the centers participating in the Bozeman Epilepsy Consortium. This collaboration has resulted in multiple publications on issues of importance such as early hemispheric vulnerability to seizures, preservation of language in temporal lobectomy, and utility of existing visual memory paradigms for human neuropsychology. This large database also serves as a foundation for many other areas of research, including personality and emotional functioning, developmental issues in epilepsy, and treatment and outcome research. This ongoing collaboration is also conducting prospective studies of neuropsychological functioning and assessment. Yale also serves as the coordinating center for a multicenter study of cognitive and psychosocial/quality of life outcome in epilepsy surgery. Research programs also include diverse areas of neurological injury and disease. The Neuropsychology service contributes to ongoing studies of treatments for Parkinson's disease. Clinical trials in Multiple Sclerosis and HIV, long term outcome of premature birth children, and plasticity of function are ongoing areas of study. Dr. Brown is also the author of the Brown Location Test (BLT) which is designed for visual memory functioning, and is currently being studied at several high level research facilities including Yale, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Indiana University and Purdue Consortium, University of Wisconsin, and several international locations.

Functional imaging is increasingly being made available as a clinical tool, but requires validation with existing standards. The development of functional imaging paradigms that are applicable to clinical practice is another area of ongoing research. Through consultation with physicists developing more powerful imaging techniques, behavioral tests are adapted for the functional imaging environment, allowing in-vivo study of higher cortical functions.