Research holds the key to the future of treating people with neurologic conditions.
The Hartford HealthCare Ayer Neuroscience Institute (Ayer NSI) Research Program is dedicated to advancing medical science and innovation in neuroscience, with a primary focus on improving outcomes for patients suffering from neurological disorders. We cultivate strong collaborations across subspecialties and actively participate in prestigious local, national, and international research initiatives, aiming to drive meaningful progress in the field.
This page serves as a resource for patients, investigators, students, potential industry partners and sponsors interested in learning and potentially becoming involved in current Ayer NSI research endeavors. It is our privilege to support our clinicians and research colleagues as they contribute to advances in neuroscience medicine and improve care for our patients.
At the Ayer Neuroscience Institute, we are actively engaged in a wide variety of research projects across our sub-specialty programs in our pursuit of answers and effective diagnostic and treatment options for patients. To highlight a few:
Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease: The Stroke Program has a long history of excellence in clinical research and academic achievement. With the support of our clinicians, the Ayer NSI Stroke Program is paving the way in clinical care through innovative research. We are engaged in multiple StrokeNet trials that bring in large, diverse patient populations to conduct and awarded Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grants.
Neurosurgery: The areas of research range broadly from improving access to care for our underserved communities, improving the collection of patient reported outcomes, innovative techniques in cranial neurosurgery and spine surgery, and the creation of an international checklist for safety in complex spine surgery in collaboration with prominent US and international institutions. We have multiple ongoing clinical studies — company funded observational study, internally funded Principle Investigator initiated studies with a strong medical students participation in the design and the execution of the studies.
Movement Disorders: We continue to seek new ways to manage symptoms, slow the progression and observe trends in neurodegenerative disorders through clinical trials, in collaboration with other movement disorders specialists throughout North America and Europe and research consortia. We have several ongoing clinical research studies, and eligible patients have the option to participate in these clinical trials.
Headache: The Headache Program continues to pave the way in headache specific research with focuses in headache medicine curriculum and innovative approaches to treatment. Our program has created HEADucation, an innovative interactive case-based headache medicine curriculum which has been integrated and studied in several neurology residency programs nationwide. So far, it has resulted in a significant improvement in neurology residents’ knowledge of headache, even increasing their diagnostic comfort related to headache disorders. In another study, our team sought to establish which patients require follow up to interventional neuroradiologists after an aneurysm is detected on imaging. Knowing that successful management of multidisciplinary headache care involves physical exercise, our team performed a retrospective study and found potential correlations.
We will also be one of the lead headache center sites in the country for ShiraTronics' recently launched U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved pivotal trial, the RELIEV-CM2 Clinical Study. This is a multi-center, blinded, randomized, sham-controlled clinical trial that is designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the company's Migraine Therapy System. This is a minimally invasive device that is implanted just beneath the skin in the head where it delivers small electrical pulses to targeted nerves associated with migraine pain in patients who have failed current medical therapies and have treatment-resistant chronic migraine.
Epilepsy: In Epilepsy, we are focused on clinical research specifically around psychosocial profiles of people with seizures, as well as a patient registry
Pain Management: The areas of research in our pain medicine division broadly range from the study of both acute and chronic pain. We are currently focused on study of new and innovative therapies aimed at treating pain. This ranges from a multi center real world study on pain outcomes of radiofrequency ablation to study on basivertebral nerve ablation for treatment of axial back pain. Future projects aim to study the non-operative treatment of knee osteoarthritis which plagues millions of Americans, We hope with research, to continue to stay on the most cutting edge of pain treatments and to establish safe protocols to deliver this care to our patients suffering with pain.
Sports Neurology: The focus in sports neurology is on clinical research. Currently, we have a prospective cohort with a high school football team to track the impact of playing football on the neurologic function of the athletes over the course of their 4-year football careers.
Neurocritical Care: The clinical focus of our Neurocritical Care Unit is expansive with an aim to optimize care for patients suffering from a variety of severe acute neurologic injuries (SANI). Similarly, our research program focuses on improving the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of the patients that we care for. Current projects that our diverse clinical faculty are collaborating on include the evolution of multimodal monitoring, remote respiratory monitoring, epilepsy and acute seizure management, post-procedure care paradigms, neurorecovery, time-limited trials of restorative care, and shared decision making in the setting of SANI.
Learn more about active clinical trials.