July 2022

Fabrisia Ambrosio, Ph.D., M.P.T., has been appointed the inaugural Atlantic Charter Director for the Discovery Center for Musculoskeletal Recovery at Spaulding Research Institute. A pioneer in the field of “regenerative rehabilitation”—which fuses physiology, applied biophysics, and stem cell biology towards the goal of optimizing functional recovery through tissue regeneration, remodeling, or repair—Dr. Ambrosio will officially bring her lab to Boston in September to lead the Center’s already-groundbreaking efforts in non-surgical musculoskeletal therapies, including orthobiologics and shockwave.

Dr. Ambrosio’s directorship was made possible by a generous $2.5 million gift from Atlantic Charter Insurance Company and its President Linda J. Sallop (pictured) and Executive Vice President Mitch I. Weisman. “The magnitude and burden of musculoskeletal disorders in this country are growing dramatically,” says Ms. Sallop. “We see it every day in our own work and believe that by supporting Spaulding in this area of research, we are helping to change this scenario and return people back to their jobs and their lives.” More than 126 million Americans—one in two adults—struggle with musculoskeletal conditions, including pain and injury in the muscles, bones, and joints, which account for nearly one in five health care visits.

On Friday, June 3, the Harvard Medical School Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Spaulding held the annual Dr. J. Shaughnessy PM&R Research & Education Day. Distinguished guest lecturers included Northwestern’s Monica Rho, M.D., who spoke about exercise in the pregnant athlete; Indiana University’s Flora Hammond, M.D., who discussed her experience leading a large multicenter study in traumatic brain injury; and Baylor’s Felicia Skelton-Dudley, M.D., M.S., (pictured with Spaulding President Dr. Ross Zafonte) who talked about health services research in patients with spinal cord injury.

Five Spaulding residents—Ya-Ting Chen, M.D., Stephanie DeLuca, M.D., Anthony Park, M.D., Alissa Totman, M.D., M.P.H., and Christa Nnoromele, M.D. (pictured)—also contributed lectures on topics that included innovative approaches to treating knee pain and hamstring tendinopathy; longitudinal trends in severe traumatic brain injury rehabilitation; and a resident-led curriculum on diversity, equity, and inclusion. View the video of the entire program here.

In June, the Department also celebrated the accomplishments of the 2022 class of talented residents and fellows at its 27th Graduation and Awards Ceremony. This month, Spaulding welcomed an equally exceptional new class in its ongoing mission as the official teaching partner of Harvard Medical School to train the best and the brightest in rehabilitation medicine.

Tinnitus, sometimes called ringing in the ears, is the perception of sound in the absence of corresponding external sound and is often the consequence of hearing loss after repeated high-intensity noise exposure. A researcher in Spaulding Research Institute’s Scott Schoen and Nancy Adams Discovery Center for the Recovery from Chronic Pain, Clas Linnman, Ph.D., recently published the promising results of a pilot study in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology exploring a creative therapy for tinnitus. His work is based on a successful strategy used to treat phantom limb pain in amputees.

Mirror box therapy, where mirrors are placed to create an illusion of a missing limb, exploits the brain’s preference to prioritize vision over sensation. Seeing one’s missing limb back in place can change how the brain interprets signals from those lost nerve endings and diminish the phantom pain. Linnman applied the concept to tinnitus using a pair of headphones with built-in microphones to transpose the sounds heard by each ear with the goal of retraining the brain and reducing the phantom perception of sound. The experiment significantly reduced the condition in 20 subjects with chronic tinnitus using the device for two weeks.

“These findings suggest a novel approach to a widespread problem and certainly encourage further study,” says Dr. Linnman, who received a 2022 Mass General Brigham Innovation Discovery Grant to build on this work at a larger scale. “We are hopeful this therapy can greatly improve the quality of lives the millions impacted by tinnitus.” An estimated one in ten adults suffer from the condition yet there are no FDA-approved drugs or devices for its treatment.

Ross Zafonte, D.O., Spaulding’s president and traumatic brain injury (TBI) expert, was recently senior author on a study published in JAMA Network Open, which examined the rates of cardiovascular, endocrine, neurological, and psychiatric comorbidities among patients with TBI.

Led by first author Saef Izzy, M.D., a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the paper examined data from the Mass General Brigham Research Patient Data Registry and found that the rates of cardiovascular and endocrine conditions were significantly higher in people with TBI than those without TBI, regardless of age and severity of injury.

“It is vital we continue to challenge our previous assumptions on traumatic brain injury especially in younger populations,” says Dr. Zafonte. “The data in the study demonstrates that we should explore proactive targeted screenings in the TBI population to address these risk factors earlier, develop interventions, and improve their long-term quality of life.” Read more about this work in this Medscape article and in the invited commentary on its importance.

An article in Neo.Life highlighted the research of J. Leon Morales-Quezada, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., which is focused on using open-label placebos to potentially reduce the reliance on opioids for pain relief. This promising research also appeared in National Geographic.

Spotlight on Spaulding Science is a quarterly e-newsletter for donors and friends of Spaulding Research Institute. For questions or to submit your own research news item, please contact:

Alexandra Molloy at [email protected].

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