Clinical Core

Boston University Medical Campus, Boston MA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Core A. Clinical Assessment Core The Clinical Assessment Core recruits and provides comprehensive assessments of research participants, and coordinates their participation in affiliated research projects. Brain-damaged individuals may be quite dissimilar in their patterns of cognitive dysfunction. Thus research projects affiliated with the HGARC are dependent oh a comprehensive understanding of each participant's neurological, neuroimaging, neurobehavioral, neuropsychological, and language status. The Clinical Assessment Core examination consists of four major components: (1) a medical/neurological evaluation conducted by a behavioral neurologist, (2) a speech/language evaluation conducted by a speech-language pathologist, (3) a neuropsychological evaluation conducted by a neuropsychologist, and (4) neuroimaging performed by the radiology service of affiliated hospitals and interpreted by the Assesement Gore neuroimaging specialists. In addition to recruitment and testing of participants with left- or right-hemispheric brain damgage, the Clinical Assessment Core also recruits and screens matched control subjects. Newly added to our Clinical Assessment Core during the current grant cycle is the Extended Assessment Clinic, used to assess over . time a subject's response to cognitive-linguistic treatment techniques in an early, developmental stage. This new program responds directly to NIH initiatives for translational research, and, as documented in this proposal, has already succeeded in serving as an incubator for new bench-to-bedside research. The Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center has been providing recruitment and clinical assessment services to Boston-area researchers since its founding in the 1960s and is internationally recognized for its expertise in the assessment and treatment of people with communication impairments. Recruiting research participants for aphasia and aphasia related research is costly and labor-intensive. Researchers have come to rely on the HGARC for its comprehensive, efficient, and cost-effective support.