Steve Small, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Steven L. Small is currently an Associate Professor of Neurology and Co-Director of the Brain Research MR Imaging Center at the University of Chicago. Dr. Small received his A.B. in Mathematics at Dartmouth College and then pursued a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Maryland and an M.D. at the University of Rochester. Before coming to the University of Chicago in 1999, Dr. Small was an Associate Professor of Neurology, Radiology and Physiology at the University of Maryland. Dr. Small has been a teacher, invited guest lecturer, and community service provider throughout his academic career. He has also provided editorial consultation on many occasions. Dr. Small has reviewed articles for a number of journals including the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Stroke, and Neurology. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the journal Brain and Language. In addition he is a member of the External Advisory Board of the Boston Aphasia Research Center. Dr. Small's research focuses on language and motor function in the brain before and after stroke. He researches normal functioning of the cerebral cortex area to better understand how the brain functions after damage to the area. The cerebral cortex is responsible for such functions as learning, memory, language and complex motor activity. Dr. Small is interested in investigating the neurobiological changes that take place during the period of recovery after a stroke. Discovering specific patterns in brain recovery associated with good recovery and function could have significant implications for implementing successful stroke recovery regimens, whether behavioral, pharmacological, or cellular in nature.
Contact Information:
Research Interests His current projects are in the areas of language and motor function, and are concerned with both the normal anatomy of these functions and their recovery after stroke. In the study of normal adults, he has found that the language areas of the brain are more widely distributed than previously thought, extending to brain regions that are anatomically removed from those originally postulated by Broca, Wernicke, and Dejerine, and extending to both cerebral hemispheres. In the motor system, he has found that left and right handed people use somewhat different brain networks when making simple and complex finger movements. Motor language and recovery from stroke can proceed quite slowly after the initial effects of emergency "brain attack" treatment have been fully appreciated. Dr. Small has also begun to investigate the neurobiological changes that take place after the initial recovery period from stroke by performing fMRI and functional evaluations at regular intervals during the course of recovery. In motor function, he has shown that the cerebellum plays an active role in such recovery, but that the side of the brain "opposite" the stroke does not. He is still trying to discover if specific patterns of brain recovery are associated with good recovery of function. If such neurobiological recovery can be influenced with particular types of behavioral tasks or by pharmacological intervention, then the basic results can have important clinical implications. He and his lab are exploring both of these approaches. In one study, they have shown that normal people can alter the structure of their primary motor cortex by practicing a motor task, but it does not yet seem to make a difference if it is a simple task or a complex task. In a stroke patient with a reading impairment, they have shown that learning a particular reading strategy (mapping letters onto sounds) both improved reading skill and changed the brain to emphasize certain regions (occipital/temporal) over others (inferior parietal). Finally, they are exploring the role of certain neurotransmitters as potential pharmacological adjuncts for stroke recovery, by studying the brain concentrations of such substances in neural tissue from people with and without a history of stroke.
Recent Publications Bergey, G. K., Small, S. L., & Eisenberg, H. M. (2000). Functional magnetic resonance imaging localization of motor function. Archives of Neurology, 57(5), 749. Harris, A. E., Ermentrout, G. B., & Small, S. L. (2000). A model of ocular dominance column development by competition for trophic factor: Effects of excess trophic factor with monocular deprivation and effects of antagonist of trophic factor. Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 8(3), 227-50. Cummings, D. M., Emge, D. K., Small, S. L., & Margolis, F. L. (2000). Pattern of olfactory bulb innervation returns after recovery from reversible peripheral deafferentation. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 421(3), 362-373. Burton, M. W., Small, S. L., & Blumstein, S. E. (2000). The role of segmentation in phonological processing: An fMRI investigation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(4), 679-690. Joanette, Y. & Small, S.L. (2000). Brain and language in the milennium. Brain and Language, 71(1), 1-3. Hlustik, P., Solodkin, A., Gullapalli, R., Noll, D., & Small, S. (in press). Somatotopy of human primary motor hand area revisited. Cerebral Cortex. Burton, M. W., Noll, D. C., & Small, S. L. (in press). The anatomy of the auditory word processing: Individual variability. Brain and Language. Book ChaptersSmall, S.L., & Burton, M.W. (2000). Functional neuroimaging of language, in Boller, F., & Grafman, J. (eds.), Handbook of Neuropsychology, Amsterdam. Small, S.L., & Burton, M.W. (2000). Functional Imaging in Normal and Impaired Language, in Ross, E., (eds.), Behavioral Neurology Course Syllabus. San Diego: American Academy of Neurology.
Selected Courses
|
