Speech-language pathology professor’s study continues despite COVID-19

By Kate Hunger

Speech-language pathology Assistant Professor Rocío Norman, Ph.D., never thought she would be donning personal protective gear to conduct a study of mild traumatic brain injury.  

Yet despite the challenges, Norman and Tara Flaugher, the UTSA neurobiology doctoral student she is working with on the study, have been able to collect data from human subjects during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The goal is to identify and understand the mechanisms of language disorders after mild traumatic brain injury using EEG and ERP (evoke response potential) methods,” Norman said. “So we are bringing people who have a history of mild TBI into the lab to complete experiment tasks about language comprehension, and while they are doing the tasks we are recording the electrical activity of their brain.”

Funded by Norman’s KL2 grant from by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Science, the study being conducted in the lab of UTSA Biology Professor Nicole Wicha, Ph.D.

“It’s an exploratory study,” Norman said. “This will help us gather pilot data to apply for a bigger grant from NIH. It’s giving me an opportunity to learn the EEG/ERP methodology EEG/ERP.”

As of mid-November, researchers had collected data from 16 face-to-face subjects for the EEG/ERP portion of the study and had gathered qualitative data from 27 virtual participants regarding their lived experiences as people who might have communication problems after mild TBI.

Norman praised the hard work Flaugher put in to set up COVID protocols.

“She has gotten all the COVID protocols in place and a lot of the screening in place that has to be done virtually,” Norman said of Flaugher. “She has been instrumental in getting this done. “

“I think the biggest challenge was making sure that everything was safe,” Flaugher said.

The study began in August, and Norman hopes to collect data from 60 subjects and submit pilot data for an NIH grant in February. Most of the study participants’ injuries have been related to sports.

“This has been a tremendous opportunity to be able to work not only with clinical research scientists but also with basic research scientists and to learn what it takes to be on a transdisciplinary team,” Flaugher said.

“We are doing this to help people,” Norman said. “When you are tackling something as challenging as getting a Ph.D. or applying for funding that is very competitive, it helps to have a compelling reason.”

If you or someone you know has experienced a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury, please consider participating in a research study through UT Health San Antonio. The study team, led by Dr. Rocío Norman, is investigating communication after injury. For more information, please contact Dr. Norman: normanr@uthscsa.edu or 210-450-8352 or Dr. Wicha: wichalabgroup@gmail.com or (210) 458-7012.