10.8.09 | Chris Seper

Ohio researchers to study stroke recovery, eye infections

Two National Institutes of Health grants will fund research in Ohio focused on helping stroke patients and infections related to contact lenses.

The University of Cincinnati will use a $3.6 million grant, in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, to research how thinking about physical acts can help stroke patients. A $1.57 million grant will fund ongoing research at Case Western Reserve University to develop a treatment for the eye infection bacterial keratitis.

The Cincinnati grant will monitor how “mental rehearsal” of physical activities can improve motor skills in stroke patients. That approach causes the brain to rewire itself and is important in helping stroke patients get movements back, according to research by the grant’s principal investigator, Stephen Page. The University of Cincinnati and Cleveland Clinic will test about 50 patients each over the course of the five-year grant.

Case Western Reserve University will combine the four-year, $1.57 million renewal grant with a five-year, $2.4 million grant it received last year for the study of bacterial keratitis, a corneal infection that causes eye inflammation, pain and can in some cases eyesight damage. anti-inflammatory medications that could serve as alternatives to steroids to treat the infections. Researchers hope to find areas of cells that would be targets for an anti-inflammatory medication that could eventually take the place of steroid treatments.