Dr. John Downie, Brain Repair Centre Researchers

Dr. John Downie

http://pharmacology.medicine.dal.ca/about/people/faculty_detail.cfm?ID_People=10

Spinal cord injury disrupts the control of the urinary bladder as well as other organs. Dr. John Downie brings extensive experience in the study of bladder function to the problem of how to explain and control this disordered bladder function. His work, in collaboration with other members of the Brain Repair Centre, focuses on the roles of neuronal sprouting and synaptic strengthening on the emergence of abnormal bladder and sphincter activity after spinal cord injury. An understanding of the fundamental processes that underlie neural circuit reorganization will lead to strategies aimed at modifying detrimental nerve plasticity in the spinal cord thus controlling neurogenic bladder dysfunction after spinal cord injury.