John D. Houle PhD

Dr. Houle has a long standing interest in spinal cord injury and the potential to promote structural and functional repair in acute and chronic injury situations. It is important to understand that a spinal cord injury is an evolving condition where for weeks to months after injury there continues to be change/modulation of the cellular and molecular components affected directly or indirectly by the injury. These changes often are most prominent at the site of injury but it is critical that we also understand how cells/tissues remote to the injury are affected. An example would be the effect of spinal cord injury on neurons in the brain that normally transfer information through axon pathways that have been damaged. The response to injury by neurons in the brain may include cell atrophy, cell death,change in gene expression, retraction of the damaged axonal process or an attempt to re-grow the damaged axonal process.