The First Brain Injury Research Project for Near-Drowning Children - The Study Begins!
Conrad Tullis brain scans 10-21-12 005
Conrad Tullis brain scans 10-21-12 054
Conrad Tullis brain scans 10-21-12 056
The research study has begun!
Since we first announced the pending research study in our January update, the number 1 question has been: “When will it start?” We are so glad to now answer: “It Has!” As a reminder, Dr. Peter Fox of the UT Health Science Center agreed to lead the FIRST research project to address brain injury in child near-drowning cases. Utilizing Resting State Functional Imaging, his team will analyze brain activity and patterns of connections to provide families information on the functional status of their child's brain. The information will assist caregivers in management and treatment decisions and provide a more targeted approach to therapy. For more information, please visit our Research page http://www.conradsmiles.com/research/
Conrad was scanned on October 21st. Now the number 1 question is: “When will we get the results?”Doctoral candidate Janessa Manning, who is managing the research study gives this answer: "Dr Fox took a variety of images of Conrad’s brain. We are playing with ways to analyze them to get the most useful information from the acquired data. However, until we know what a typically developing 10 year-old boy's brain is doing, our ability to interpret the findings is pretty limited."This is because the research approach involves comparing brain images of near-drowning victims to those of typically developing children in gender and age matched “pairs”.Sam, who you met in the last update, has agreed to be the age/gender match for Conrad. Thank you Sam. Sam’s scan is scheduled for mid November.The study also requires multiple case analyses. We are targeting 9 gender/age matched “pairs” like Conrad and Sam. Currently we have one other signed up. The sooner we can recruit more near-drowning children to the study, the sooner the team will have sufficient data to form more solid conclusions.
We are asking families of near-drowning children to contact Janessa at manningj@uthscsa.edu if they are interested in participating, so please spread the word.Then we can move to the next step – research related to the treatment.Thank you to all who have followed throughout our journey. We still have along way to go but we have taken a huge step forward. Please take a moment celebrate with us.Steve Spriester, KSAT news, captured Conrad’s scan and interviewed Dr. Fox. Here is the link to the story if you missed it:http://www.ksat.com/lifestyle/health/S-A-boy-s-scans-could-help-others/-/478162/17251062/-/ykhrvfz/-/index.html