Researching the way to brain recovery: An interview with Dr. Swathi Kiran
Written by Bryn Gregory, video by Tee Kiengsiri and Sam Mauri
Posted October 2024
The brain is complex and fascinating, and yet most of us are largely unaware of how it works. So, when something goes wrong in our brains or the brains of our loved ones, we seek not only to understand what’s happening, but real solutions to ease the problem.
That’s where Boston University’s Center for Brain Recovery comes in. The center is working not only to understand the development of neurological disorders but also to provide real treatment solutions that can improve outcomes for patients suffering from neurological decline or brain injury.
We spoke with Dr. Swathi Kiran, director of the Center for Brain Recovery, to learn more about the center and its groundbreaking work.
Q&A with Dr. Swathi Kiran
Can you tell us about the Center for Brain Recovery?
The Center for Brain Recovery is a unique interdisciplinary center at Boston University that is focused on the early detection and identification of neurological disorders, understanding the mechanisms at play each for these diseases, and trying to evaluate which treatments work for each neurological disease. It is an interdisciplinary center with faculty who come from medicine, rehabilitation, engineering, data science, and other fields.
Can you share a bit about your background and how you came to be the founding director of the Center for Brain Recovery?
For the last 20 years, my area of research has been focused on understanding how the brain recovers language after brain injury. I have spent several years developing therapies for individuals suffering from strokes, understanding how the brain undergoes neuroplasticity as well as trying to understand how the brain can manage and maintain multiple languages. All this work has been possible because I collaborated with people outside of my area of expertise. The Center for Brain Recovery brings these important questions about brain recovery to the forefront by aligning researchers with a similar interest to tackle this very important problem. After conversations with former President Brown and provost Morrison, the Center for Brain Recovery was formed to provide the infrastructure for conducting innovative and interdisciplinary work to understand how the brain works, as well as when and why brain disorders occur. This is the right time to be studying the brain––as there is so much focus on the brain these days, and I feel very fortunate to be appointed as the founding director.
What interests you about aphasias, and what should people know about these types of brain injuries?
Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that affects someone’s ability to speak, understand, and read. This is actually a pretty common side effect for someone who has a stroke. There are many types of aphasia, depending on where the stroke affects the brain. Some people have trouble speaking and others have trouble understanding or reading. Patient affect is a robust body of literature has shown that speech language therapy is a very effective means for improving communication abilities in people with a seizure so there is hope. My work, as well as others’ research, has shown that the brain has a remarkable ability to recover and reorganize itself due to neuroplasticity after a stroke. That should give people who have brain injuries lots of hope and motivation to continue their rehabilitation journey.
What sets the Center for Brain Recovery apart from other research centers like it? What can early detection mean for patients?
The Center for Brain Recovery is a unique University-wide research center focused on the study of neurological disorders in the brain with an emphasis on real outcomes for patients. The interdisciplinary nature of the center is what sets it apart from other similar centers across the country that are focused more on basic science. A big part of a research is to focus on developing state-of-the-art neuro imaging methods to capture the brain as its functioning, showing when and why it falters, so that we can focus on early detection of dementia as well as capture precise measures of recovery and change in disorders like stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI).
What are some of the center’s current research projects, and what are their potential impacts on patients?
There are several ongoing research projects at the center. One focus at the center is to develop state-of-the-art neuroimaging and neuroscience methods to obtain a dynamic picture of the brain in individuals with neurological disorders where the brain function is not as perfect. A second focus is to identify neural and behavioral biomarkers of brain health disease and recovery. We use data science and AI methods to predict human cognitive function and individual patient recoveries after rehabilitation as well as for people with neurological decline. A lot of our initial discoveries are then translated to clinical trials related to various treatments for neurological disorders.
What does the research show us about how to improve traumatic brain injury recovery prospects?
One of the programs we run at the Center for Brain Recovery allows young adults with traumatic brain injury to return to college. It is called the Intensive Cognitive and Communication Rehabilitation program (ICCR) and is an intensive 15-week program where clients come four days a week to learn college level material. We harness what we know about neuroplasticity in this intensive rehabilitation program to enable these students to go back to their education that was disrupted due to the traumatic brain injury. We have been successful with this program for the last few years with several brain injury survivors successfully returning to college.
How can people support the Center for Brain Recovery?
There are several ways people can support the Center for Brain Recovery. We are looking to support ongoing research in terms of endowed professorships and seed grant funding. We would also love to support the patients who need rehabilitation but cannot afford it in the form of patient scholarships.
Learn more and support the Center for Brain Recovery