Lab Director: Andrew J. Butler, PhD, PT, FAHA
 
The main focus of Dr. Butler’s laboratory is on how volitional movement, motor learning, and organized motor behavior are represented in the human brain. We have recently completed a project evaluating the effect of constraint-induced movement therapy on cortical motor reorganization following stroke using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).This approach provided insight into mechanisms responsible for restitution of functional capability in using an impaired limb that had previously not been used to manipulate the environment following a stroke.

We are currently testing the hypothesis that motor (re)learning can be enhanceded both in healthy people and in people with post-stroke hemiparesis by increasing the excitability and synaptic activity of the primary motor cortex using high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).

Lastly, we are testing the effects of an application of subsensory stochastic resonance (SR) delivered by a combination of mechanical and electrical stimulation to the upper extremity. By increasing the amount of coordinated afferent traffic that naturally occurs during rehabilitation, the technology being tested promises to accelerate and improve the outcomes of stroke patients through more rapid or more complete neuroplastic remodeling.

Equipment

Dr. Butler’s labs are located in the Center for Rehabilitation Medicine in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University and the Atlanta VA medical center. Available equipment includes a single Magstim 200 single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation unit for elicit MEPs and acquiring brain maps. Also available is a Magstim Super rapid rate stimulator capable of producing 50 Hz theta burst repetitive stimulation. There are 2 double 70 mm coils and one sham coil. A brainsight frameless stereotaxy system is used with MR scans to specifically and consistently locate relevant brain structures targeted with TMS. Also available is an eight channel EGM system, Polhemus and Optotrack motion analysis systems, and 4 ATI force transducers.

Dr. Butler's CRM laboratory has 2 Pentium 4 I.5GHz Linux based workstation and 400GB storage for MRI research. Four additional Windows based PC are available for data analysis. Dr. Butler's VAMC laboratory is equipped with one Macintosh G5 workstation for image processing, fMRI data analysis and collection of Brainsight data. All workstations have image processing software such as FSL, SPM, AFNI, MATLAB and MRICRO as well as other in-house image process and analysis software. The VAMC RR& D center has a single Brainvoyager site-license for image processing.