Dr. Dale Corbett

Dr. Dale Corbett is a Professor of Neurosciences in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Stroke and Neuroplasticity.

Dr. Corbett’s research is directed at promoting recovery of function following stroke. The approaches used involve novel combinations of intensive rehabilitation, drug therapy and more recently stem cells to enhance brain repair processes.

A new direction of this research relates to depression and stroke. Depression is very common after stroke and interferes with efforts at rehabilitation. Consequently many patients are treated with antidepressant medications. However, it is unknown what impact these medications might have on mechanisms of recovery. Given some of their actions it is possible that antidepressant drugs and related compounds might have direct benefits on recovery by enhancing neuroplasticity processes (e.g. dendritic growth). To test this notion Dr. Corbett is examining the effects of antidepressants in animal models of stroke that utilize sensitive functional outcome measures. In addition, he is working with a group of psychiatrists at Memorial to study the impact of antidepressants on recovery in stroke patients. Initially this consists of a chart audit of individuals with stroke at the L.A. Miller Centre in St. John’s. The goal is to first identify the incidence and type of antidepressants used with this patient population. If some of these antidepressants foster neuroplasticity and behavioural recovery in animal stroke models then this will provide a compelling rationale for a clinical rehabilitation trial.

Dr. Corbett is also part of a recently established cross-country team working on ways to help stroke victims by using stem cells to effect brain repair. This $1.5 million project is funded by the Canadian Stroke Network. In St. John’s, Dr. Corbett’s team will take adult stem cells from other parts of the body, such as the skin and the bone marrow, and use new technology developed by other members of the team to encourage these cells to differentiate into neurons. These neurons will then be transplanted into the brains of animals that have experienced a stroke to see if these transplanted cells can restore function. Dr. Corbett will supervise a team of 10 researchers at Memorial and work in close collaboration with neurosurgeon Ivar Mendez at Dalhousie University.

In earlier work, Dr. Corbett established special methods for monitoring and controlling brain temperature in freely moving animals. He and his students were the first to show that long duration, mild hypothermia markedly reduces ischemic injury. Indeed, it is the only intervention known to provide lasting neuroprotection in animal stroke models. Recently, this type of cooling was shown to be highly effective in out of hospital cardiac arrest and represents the first translation of effective neuroprotection from the animal laboratory to a clinical population. Dr. Corbett is currently examining changes in gene expression associated with effective hypothermic neuroprotection. This research is being done in collaboration with Dr. John MacManus at the National Research Council in Ottawa.

Dr. Corbett earned a B.A from Dalhousie, a M.Sc. from Memorial and PhD from Concordia followed by post-doctoral studies at McGill. Before coming to Memorial in 1985, Dr. Corbett was a faculty member at Harvard University. His laboratory is part of the National Centre of Excellence Program, Canadian Stroke Network. In addition to the Canadian Stroke Network and Canada Research Chairs Program, his laboratory is funded by operating grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Dr. Corbett is currently the Chair of the scientific review committee for Stroke at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and is a member of the Scientific Review Committee of the Canadian Stroke Network.

For further information, please contact Dr. Dale Corbett using the Email contact form or by phone at 709 777-6705