Bruce Volpe

A graduate of Yale University Medical School, he trained in Medicine at the University of Chicago and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, and in Neurology at Weill Cornell-New York Hospital, where he remained on the faculty. He has been testing whether cross reactive anti-DNA anti-NMDAR autoantibodies are toxic to the central nervous system. He and his colleagues have assessed behavior and neuropathology in mice exposed in utero and in adults after blood brain barrier breach to murine and human (SLE) autoantibodies.They are now exploring the toxicity of related autoantibodies that are generated to ordinary infection, and are in process of characterizing a phenotype and a neuropathological region of damage.
With his other teammates, they are building on their positive findings using robotic training that delivers reproducible sensory-motor guidance to patients with chronic stroke to generate models about motor learning to affect the design of clinical trials of devices and drugs that affect motor recovery.

Recent manuscripts:

Diamond B, et al. Losing your nerves? Maybe it's the antibodies. Nat Rev Immunol. 2009 May 5. [Epub ahead of print]

Lee JY, et al. Neurotoxic autoantibodies mediate congenital cortical impairment of offspring in maternal lupus. Nature Medicine. 2009 Jan;15(1):91-6. Epub 2008 Dec 14.

Huerta PT, et al. Immunity and Behavior: Antibodies alter emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 103: (3) 678-83, January 2006.

Kowal C, et al. Antibody mediated alteration in cognitive function. Immunity, Aug;21(2):179-88, 2004.

DeGiorgio LA, et al. Lupus Anti-DNA Antibodies Bind NR2 Causing Direct Neuronal Death. Nature Medicine, 7: (11), 1189-93, 2001.

Lo AC, et al. Robot assisted therapy for long-term upper-limb impairment after stroke. New England Journal of Medicine [Epub ahead of print ]; April 15, 2010.

Volpe BT, et al. Robotic devices as therapeutic and diagnostic tools for stroke recovery. Arch Neurol. 2009 Sep;66(9):1086-90.