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Neuroscience

Hope for patients with brain and spine conditions

We have deep expertise and focus at HealthPartners clinics and hospitals in this research area. Our neuroscience research team members have subspecialty training in a wide range of areas, including:

  • Dementia
  • Epilepsy
  • General neurology
  • Headache
  • Huntington’s disease
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Neurocritical care
  • Neuro-infectious disease
  • Neuromuscular disorders
  • Neuro-oncology
  • Pain
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Sleep
  • Spinal cord injury
  • Stroke
  • Traumatic brain injury

Many patients, families and clinicians struggle with how to manage brain and spine conditions with limited or no traditional medical treatments or interventions. We provide access to neuroscience clinical trials and are currently enrolling participants.

Research teams conducting clinical trials and other clinical research are a part of the Struthers Parkinson’s Center (designated a National Parkinson Foundation Center of Excellence) and the Center for Memory and Aging.

Center for Memory and Aging

We conduct research to improve the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of brain and spine disorders. Our research spans the spectrum of brain and spine, but we have a focus on memory loss, dementia and growing programs in stroke, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury.

Struthers Parkinson’s Center

We are improving treatment, care and care delivery for patients with Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. Our neuroscience research focuses on falls, cognition and patient-centered care. We are improving care delivery throughout the natural evolution of Parkinson’s disease and using electronic medical records to optimize care delivery.

Investigators

Key projects

Intranasal drug delivery

We found that drugs given through the nose can travel directly to the brain through the brain cells responsible for the sense of smell. This drastically changed the way we can treat all brain and spine disorders, allowing us to non-invasively give nerve growth proteins, peptides and therapeutic cells. Our work was featured in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article.

Intranasal insulin

Evidence suggests that Alzheimer’s disease is a type of diabetes of the brain. Our study is looking at the safety and effectiveness of intranasal insulin in patients with the cognitive decline of normal aging and probable mild Alzheimer’s disease.

Caring for patients with Parkinson’s Disease in long-term care facilities

We are evaluating falls in the long-term care setting to identify risk factors. We will also identify and implement recommendations to reduce falls.

Cognition Linked to Endurance & Vigorous Exercise Research in Parkinson’s Disease (CLEVER-PD)

The positive effects of exercise on the physical symptoms of brain disease are well studied. However, less is known about the effects of exercise on cognition. We are developing and testing a vigorous exercise program to help patients with Parkinson’s disease maintain cognition.

Parkinson Foundation Patient Outcomes Project

This is a collaboration of 22 International Parkinson Foundation Centers of Excellence. More than 10,000 patients are enrolled in this annual registry. Struthers researchers send patient data to the registry and review registry data to identify factors that lead to falls in people with Parkinson’s disease.

Timeliness of Carbidopa/Levodopa Medication Delivery in the Hospital Setting

This project is designed to find out if timely delivery of this drug matters for patients in our associated hospital. If timeliness does matter, we will develop and implement interventions to improve it.

Key publications

Learn more about our Neuroscience investigators and their publications by visiting Knowledge Exchange.

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