Department of Anesthesiology – 2006
Douglas S. DeWitt, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Charles R. Allen Research Laboratories
The research in my laboratories focuses on the study of the effects of traumatic brain injury on the brain and its blood supply and on the effects of secondary insults such as hemorrhagic hypotension on brain func-tion. We are studying the mechanisms that cause cerebral vascular dysfunction after brain injury. In addition, we are working to develop and test resuscitation drugs and solutions to improve brain perfusion and survival after brain trauma and hemorrhage. We primarily utilize a rat model of traumatic brain injury to study a variety of parameters including neurological function and behavior, brain inflammation and apoptosis in order to assess the effectiveness of low volume resuscitation with hypertonic fluids in our model.