Research Focused
The Traumatic Brain Injury Center at Vanderbilt is dedicated to advancing the quality of life for our patients and improving support for family members through research and evidenced based care. It is our mission to ensure that every patient understands their diagnosis and is given every opportunity to succeed. Our team recognizes that patience, hope, resilience, and understanding are necessary to heal, and we are here to help.
Brain Registry
The Brain Registry is currently being done by the researchers in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It is being done to conduct a study on the long-term outcomes of acquired brain injury by establishing a patient registry. The registry will gather and analyze data critical for developing brain injury treatment and prevention strategies, identifying research and education priorities, and supporting services that improve patients' quality of life.
The purpose of this research is to gain a better understanding of the consequences of certain brain injuries, and especially to understand how these injuries affect thinking abilities. The research involves testing of various cognitive abilities (memory, language), and/or a magnetic resonance (MR) scan of the brain. There are no costs to you. We make every effort to schedule research-related visits at convenience.
We are currently inviting individuals 18-55 with a history of brain injury to participate in this study. Compensation provided. This is a scientific research study, and not part of routine medical care. There are no costs to participants for these research-related procedures
To get more information about this study, or to apply to be apart of it, please email Melissa Duff at DuffLab@vanderbilt.edu
Duff Labs
Dr. Duff’s lab conducts basic and applied research across two main themes: 1)Characterizing memory and language processing abilities in following traumatic brain (TBI) injury and; 2) Identification of long-term outcomes and recovery patterns in acquired brain injury and the development of interventions for disorders of memory, learning, and communication. Methodologically, the lab combines neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and eye-tracking methods together with behavioral methods. We work to address questions about the contribution of distinct forms of memory to various aspects of communication and social interaction and the dynamic network of neural and cognitive systems that support memory and language in the everyday communicative settings. The lab is also home to the Brain Injury Patient Registry, a repository of demographic information, and state of the art neuropsychological and neuroanatomical data from individuals with focal lesions and traumatic brain injury, which serves as a unique resource for conducting large-scale basic and translational research in the area of acquired brain injury.
