The Plastic Surgery Foundation
Log In Donate Now
 

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.

The Impact of Surgery in Craniosynostosis Using ERPs

Principal Investigator
Anup Patel MD

Year
2010

Institution
Yale University

Funding Mechanism
Pilot Research Grant

Focus Area
Cranio / Maxillofacial / Head and Neck

Abstract
Approximately 35-50% of children with nonsyndromic, single-suture craniosynostosis (NSC) have neuropsychological (NP) disabilities. Currently, no reliable method with predictive value exists for identifying patients with NSC at risk for developmental delay. Studies using developmental quotients (DQ) and intelligence quotients (IQ) to assess the intellectual capacity of infants with NSC are not predictive of long-term NP outcomes. This critical finding may serve as an important source of error in the data gathered to date, as erroneous conclusions may be reached regarding these patients' intellectual function. Thus, there is a need for an objective tool used to predict NP outcomes, enabling us to assess how surgery impacts intellectual function. Recent studies demonstrated that event-related potentials (ERPs) in infancy have strong predictive value for NP outcomes. Measuring ERPs will permit the identification of infants with NSC at risk of future NP deficits. Moreover, ERPs can potentially serve as an objective, standardized measure to evaluate the impact of the age and type of surgery on NP outcomes. We hypothesize that surgery will improve sensory processing, correcting ERP abnormalities. Specifically, we hypothesize that the younger the infants with NSC undergo surgery, the fewer NP deficits will be observed. Also, those children undergoing more comprehensive whole-vault cranioplasty, will have a lower incidence of NP sequelae. This project aims to: 1) Establish baseline ERPs and identify differences in sensory processing in infants with NSC compared to controls; 2) Examine how surgery changes sensory processing in infants with NSC by comparing pre- and post-operative ERPs; and 3) Utilize ERPs to assess the impact of age and type of surgery on NP outcomes. If this study confirms the aforementioned hypotheses, ERP testing may become standard of care, identifying the optimal age and type of surgery to reduce potential long-term NP disabilities.