Pitt To Host Forum: Head Injury And Your Brain

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 25 Mar 2008 - 3:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Each year, an estimated 1.4 million people sustain damage to the brain caused by blows to the head. In the United States, traumatic brain injury is the most common cause of death, disability and mental impairment in people between the ages of 1 and 45 years. Because brain trauma disproportionately affects younger individuals, it accounts for more years of potential life lost than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined.

The Pittsburgh Neuroscience Society will host Brain Awareness Town Meeting: Head Injury and Your Brain from 7 to 9:00 p.m., Thursday, March 27, Langley Hall, Room A221, Fifth and Tennyson Avenues, University of Pittsburgh, Oakland. The event is free and open to the public.

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine faculty, renowned for their work on head injury, will present relevant information of interest to the general public and professionals alike. C. Edward Dixon, Ph.D., professor of neurological surgery, anesthesiology, neurobiology and physical medicine and rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery, and director of the Brain Trauma Research Center, will provide an introduction to the neuroscience of traumatic brain injury and describe diverse experimental therapies; P. David Adelson, M.D., A. Leland Albright Professor of Neurological Surgery and director of Pediatric Neurotrauma at Children's Hospital of UPMC, will discuss present and future management of pediatric head injury; and Jamie E. Pardini, Ph.D., professor of orthopaedic surgery and neuropsychologist of the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program, will discuss the identification and management of sports-related concussions. A question and answer period and a reception will follow the presentations.

Departments within the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine and School of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, are hosting the forum. The Pittsburgh Neuroscience Society is a chapter of the National Society for Neuroscience, http://www.sfn.org. Pittsburgh chapter members include students and faculty from Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh. The president of the local chapter is Edda Thiels, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine