Researcher Spotlight: Dana Lengel

Dana Lengel, Drexel University was awarded a dissertation grant of $5,000 for her project “The Role of FK506-binding Protein 51 (FKBP5) in Long-term Psychosocial Outcomes of Pediatric TBI.”

This project is funded by Laura Trexler, OTR, CBIS, and Lance Trexler, Ph.D., FACRM.

Project Summary

Project Title: “The Role of FK506-binding Protein 51 (FKBP5) in Long-term Psychosocial Outcomes of Pediatric TBI.”

Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) results in increased risk for psychosocial disorders that can emerge in adolescence and adulthood. This vulnerability may be due to the susceptibility of developing neural stress circuits to TBI. In this proposal, we investigate the role of FK506-binding protein 51 (FKBP5), a co-chaperone of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and psychiatric risk factor, in behavioral and neuroendocrine effects of social stress following pediatric TBI. Targeting the GR system through FKBP5 may be able to mitigate the risk for psychosocial disorders following childhood TBI.

What compelled you to make the career choice you have as a research scientist?

My initial exposure to scientific research came during my senior year as an undergraduate student. I chose Psychology as my major of study, as I was initially very interested in learning about the underlying causes of human behavior and motivation. However, I eventually realized that I was more interested in studying the biological and cellular mechanisms underlying human behavior, brain function, and disease, and that the types of questions that I was interested in answering were beyond the scope of the psychology field, leading me to continue my education in neuroscience. When I was first introduced to biological science as a student, I really enjoyed the process of asking an interesting question, designing creative and innovative experiments to answer that question, and interpreting the meaning of the results in the context of existing scientific knowledge. As a neuroscientist, I am passionate about answering questions about the relationship between brain function and behavior, and particularly how early life influences can lead to an increased risk for psychiatric disease later in life. I believe that the work that I can contribute towards answering these questions will guide the development of pharmacological treatments to mitigate emotional and behavioral symptoms in a number of pathological conditions, including childhood traumatic brain injury.

How has support from the Brain Injury Association of America helped you achieve your research goals?

The support that I have received from the Brain Injury Association of America was instrumental in enabling me to design and perform experiments addressing an important area of pediatric brain injury research: What injury-induced neurological changes mediate the risk for chronic psychosocial and behavioral alterations after pediatric brain trauma? This support helped to fund an experiment to investigate the role of FK506 binding protein 51 (FKBP5), a co-chaperone of the glucocorticoid receptor and psychiatric risk factor, in chronic emotional deficits after pediatric brain injury. Having the ability to evaluate the effectiveness pharmacological inhibition of FKBP5 has moved my research on the role of glucocorticoid receptor dysfunction in cognitive and behavioral outcomes of pediatric traumatic brain injury forward by increasing the translational relevance of my work. The data from these experiments will provide an opportunity to translate these observations to the clinic in the long term.

What message do you have for donors supporting the Brain Injury Research Fund?

I would like to thank the donors – in particular, Laura and Lance Trexler – for all they have done in supporting the future of brain injury research and supporting the training of young and early-career researchers like myself. Their contributions to the field have helped to facilitate public awareness of the risks associated with brain injuries and the progress of both clinical and preclinical research on treatment strategies to improve outcomes after pediatric brain trauma. These contributions will one day lead to the development of an effective pharmacological treatment for the cognitive and behavioral symptoms resulting from traumatic brain injuries.

Why is it important to support brain injury research?

Traumatic brain injury is a common and chronic disease that affects approximately 3 million people each year in the United States and is the leading cause of long-term disability in the pediatric population. Children younger than 4 years old are most likely to sustain brain injuries, and often face lifelong impairments that can severely affect their quality of life. Despite the prevalence of TBI, it currently lacks any FDA-approved pharmacological treatments. Supporting brain injury research is important for both raising public brain injury awareness and facilitating the development of effective therapeutic interventions for treating and improving the quality of life of survivors of childhood brain injuries.

What else would be helpful for our community of donors and supporters to know about your work?

Pediatric traumatic brain injury is an important area of research that is often under-studied. While clinical research has identified impairment in emotional behaviors as a significant outcome after brain injury in children, few preclinical studies have investigated long-term emotional outcomes after pediatric injuries. Clinical evidence has recently demonstrated that brain injuries in children can lead to altered function of the stress response, which could be an important biological factor influencing post-traumatic behavioral and emotional deficits. Promoting more preclinical research on the effects of pediatric injury on emotional and stress-related outcomes will have a significant impact on the field and will contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these injury-induced biological changes. This research will help guide the development of novel and effective therapeutic strategies to treat the disabling symptoms associated with traumatic brain injuries during childhood.

After you complete the research that this grant supports, what new platform of information do you hope to have for you to base your next research grant upon? What is your expectation that the next research project will seek to reveal or determine?

The research supported by this grant will provide proof-of-concept data demonstrating that inhibiting FKBP5 after pediatric traumatic brain injury can increase the activity of glucocorticoid receptors in the brain and reverse deficits in emotional behaviors and acute stress reactivity. These findings will set the stage for a future grant to investigate the impact of pediatric brain injury on the vulnerability to negative outcomes following chronic stress, including anxiety, depression, and addiction-related behaviors, and whether inhibition of FKBP5 improves these outcomes. The data from these experiments will have strong translational significance and will provide evidence for changes in stress system function as a risk factor for developing emotional and substance use disorders following pediatric traumatic brain injury.

What opportunities exist to impact practice or policy with your research?

I believe that my research can have an impact on clinical practice by identifying biological risk factors that are associated with negative outcomes following traumatic brain injury in children, such as changes in stress system function. Monitoring these stress-related outcomes after brain injury in children such as cortisol levels, particularly in the context of stress, may help to improve the prediction of psychological and behavioral difficulties that emerge in the years following pediatric brain injury. Treatment interventions such as improving coping strategies and stress management may be beneficial in mitigating the emotional consequences of childhood traumatic brain injury. My research can have an impact on policy by demonstrating the necessity to provide resources to both help prevent brain injuries in children, and to help families cope with the effects of childhood brain injury.

About Dana

My research interests involve the development of a comprehensive understanding how early life adversity such as stress and brain trauma influence the long-term risk for psychiatric illness. I first discovered my passion for neuroscience – a field that is exciting, intellectually challenging, and motivating – during my graduate training in the biomedical sciences master’s program at Stony Brook. Completing a successful master’s degree gave me the confidence and affirmation that studying neuroscience and conducting research at the doctorate level was both something that I wanted to do and something that I could do.

Education

Candidate for Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience, Drexel University, since July 2016; Master of Science in Neuroscience, Stony Brook University, May 2016; Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Queens College, December 2013.

---

Click here to learn more about the Research Grants Program.