Dr. Helen Louise Carlson
Positions
Associate Professor (Research)
Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics
Associate Member
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Brain and Mental Health Research Clinics Initiative
Child Health & Wellness Researcher
Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute
Contact information
Background
Biography
Dr. Carlson's research focuses on using multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate mechanisms of neuroplasticity in the developing brain of children with early brain injuries. Such children include those with perinatal and childhood stroke, quadriplegic cerebral palsy, epilepsy, spinal muscular atrophy, preterm birth, traumatic brain injuries, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and more.
Dr. Carlson is particularly interested in personalized neuroimaging using normative modelling and machine learning where individual differences in brain plasticity, reflected in departures from typical developmental trajectories, can inform rehabilitation strategies and future intervention-based clinical trials. How individualized modelling of brain anatomy can maximize effectiveness of non-invasive brain stimulation and pediatric brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are additional research interests.
Dr. Carlson also embraces the knowledge of patient and family partners with lived experience in her research and feels that working together we are closer to achieving excellence. Improving clinical care and quality of life via evidence-based interventions are of utmost importance.
Research
Areas of Research
My research interests encompass many advanced MRI brain imaging techniques and currently focus on mapping neural networks to investigate brain neuroplasticity after early injury. Of particular interest is the use of neuroimaging to measure therapeutic effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on structural and functional networks and how integration of multimodal imaging may identify individualized rehabilitation targets for children with cerebral palsy after stroke to maximize therapeutic effects.
Participation in university strategic initiatives
Projects
During the course of our rehabilitation clinical trials, we have found that kids with cerebral palsy (CP) rarely meet others with the same life challenges. The Adventure Awaits Activity ebook is intended to highlight kids with CP and their stories. Each page in the activity book showcases a child with CP and their story. Each child has provided a favourite recipe, scientific experiment, craft, or sporty activity (or all four) as well as a short biography about themselves. They have also shared what they would like to tell other kids, what they do for fun, their hobbies, favourite movie, favourite book, favourite sports teams, and more. Also included are some adults who experience cerebral palsy and their stories. Activities from our rehabilitation day camp (SPORT) are also included as an Amazing Race through various countries. We hope this activity book will help kids with CP be active and have fun.
Traditional brain neuroimaging studies rely heavily on group-level statistics of complex data, often obscuring important individual differences. This emphasizes the need for robust, patient-specific methods of characterizing brain development over the course of childhood. The FIDELITI (Fingerprinting Individual Differences in Lesion Impact Through Imaging) Dashboard provides a novel way to explore differences between an individual’s brain map and a large group of controls using normative modelling. Similar statistical techniques are commonly used to identify departures from typical developmental trajectories (i.e., height and weight developmental trajectory curves). We have extended these concepts to create a brain health dashboard composed of personalized brain charts. This will allow us to quantify individualized brain development in children with neurological conditions such perinatal stroke and can potentially be applied to other neurological conditions in children.
Publications
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