Jason B. Carmel, MD, PhD, is a child neurologist and motor system neuroscientist interested in central nervous system injury and repair. During his postdoctoral fellowship in Jack Martin’s laboratory, Dr. Carmel developed expertise in corticospinal injury and response to activity-based treatments. Using a combination of anatomy, physiology (brain mapping), and behavior, he has been able to identify the brain circuits that adapt to developmental brain injury.

Dr. Carmel’s laboratory uses activity-based therapies, including brain stimulation and intensive behavioral training to promote recovery of function, both in rodents and humans. In a rodent hemiparesis model, they have demonstrated that stimulation of spared motor circuits causes them to sprout at their terminations in the spinal cord, form functional connections with spinal motor circuits, and restore motor skill.

Dr. Carmel’s expertise in animal models of human disease and clinical neurology will allow him to translate the gains in understanding that we hope to achieve in the proposed studies into improved treatments for children with cerebral palsy. This is Dr. Camel’s goal as a physician-scientist: to direct a truly translational program in which we model activity-based repair strategies in young animals with early brain injury and then use those results to design better treatments for children at risk for cerebral palsy.