Grants Funded
Grant applicants for the 2024 cycle requested a total of nearly $3 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated more than 100 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $650,000 dollars to support more than 20 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Revealing how vibration injures peripheral nerves and methods of prevention
Chaowen Wu MD, PhD
2016
The Medical College of Wisconsin
ASPN/PSF Research Grant
Peripheral Nerve, Hand or Upper Extremity
Millions of Americans are exposed to hand transmitted vibration and risk developing hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). HAVS manifests in debilitating and irreversible numbness and later painful vasospasm of the fingers (Raynaud's phenomenon). The diagnosis is frustrating to both patients and upper extremity surgeons as there is currently no effective intervention. The pathogenesis remains unclear, therefore, it is critical to reveal the mechanism of injury in order to successfully prevent HAVS.
To study the mechanism of injury, a rat-tail model of HAVS will be used to simulate the effect of vibration on the nerves and arteries of the fingers. Aim 1 will determine whether the mechanical movements of vibration alone can lead to nerve injury if we remove the sensation of vibration. We will test this by examining signs of myelin damage in rat tails nerves vibrated with or without local tail anesthesia. Aim 2 will test whether vibration causes an increase in nerve energy usage and build of of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS). We will quantify and compare levels of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide; a molecules important in ATP generation), and ROS using tissue assays. We will also test whether supplementing the nerve with additional energy using nicotinamide riboside (a precursor to NAD+) can prevent vibration damage. Aim 3 will determine whether vibration injures sensory nerves, motor nerves, or both indiscriminately. We will examine nerve staining for sensory neurons using carbonic anhydrase and motor neurons using cholinesterase to determine how myelin damage colocalizes with sensory or motor nerve staining.
We hypothesize that vibration overactivates sensory nerve firing which uses energy. Energy deficit leads to ROS build up and sensory nerve injury. Consequently, damaged sensory nerves cannot provide accurate feedback to the sympathetic nervous system which controls when blood vessel should dilate or constrict. This leads to the development of vasospasm (Raynaud's Phenomenon). We predict that vibrational nerve injury can be prevented by either anesthetizing the sensory perception of vibration to prevent sensory nerve overactivation, or by supplementing the energy needed to support high frequency nerve firing induced by vibration. These studies will increase our understanding about how vibration causes nerve injury and potentially provide effective therapies to prevent HAVS.
