Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 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.
Motor Axon Misdirection in Traumatic Neuroma-in-Continuity Injury
Jacob Alant MD, FRCSC
2011
University of Calgary
Traumatic neuroma-in-continuity (NIC) result in profound neurological deficits and its management poses the most challenging problem to peripheral nerve surgeons today. Clinically prototypical NIC is encountered in brachial plexus injuries, with close to 1/20 motorcycle and snowmobile accident victims sustaining brachial plexus injuries. Early diagnosis of NIC remains remains a challenge and delayed repair strategies are employed with and often limited success.To our knowledge no rodent or other animal model has yet been refined or validated to reproduce NIC injuries by employing physical forces akin to those responsible for the majority of injuries encountered clinically. The novel traumatic neuroma-in-continuity injury model in rodent sciatic nerves, developed in our laboratory requires further characterization. Employing a combination of traction and intense compression forces, we were able to consistently reproduce the histological characteristics of NIC. We compared the behavioral effects of our sciatic nerve NIC injury model, to the established simple sciatic crush injury and demonstrated significantly worse functional recovery in the NIC group. A larger study is required to properly compare our NIC model also with nerve transection injuries in order to characterize relative axonal misdirection and functional deficits. Retrograde motor neuron labeling from distal sciatic nerve branches will enable us to quantify and compare misdirection of motor axons. Serial skilled locomotion tasks up to 8 weeks post injury will allow us to quantify and compare functional deficits between study groups. A validated simple small-animal model for NIC would be invaluable to make this elusive and devastating injury amenable to basic science research. Our relatively simple and accessible model, once further validated, would be a useful tool to investigate and develop new diagnostic techniques and intervention strategies to help improve our patient outcomes.