Alain Ptito

Dr. Alain Ptito is Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University and a medical scientist at the Research Institute of the MUHC. Dr. Ptito has worked as a Neuropsychologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital since 1983 and he is now Director of the Psychology Department at the MUHC and a recognized expert on traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr A. Ptito’s research program involves the investigation of the mechanisms involved in cerebral reorganization and plasticity in patient populations (hemispherectomy, callosotomy, Parkinson’s Disease, stroke, and TBI). For the past several years, he has been using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate motor recovery in stroke and the neural substrates of residual vision in the blind visual field following hemispherectomy.  He is a member of the Order of Psychologists of the Province of Quebec and of the Société des Experts en Evaluation Médico-légale du Québec. In recent years, Dr. Ptito has explored new methods of using fMRI for examining brain trauma. In athletes, he has been using fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying working memory. He has been able to carry out baseline fMRI and neuropsychological testing with hockey and football varsity athletes and to repeat the tests immediately after a concussion and subsequently until symptom resolution. His results show that fMRI is sensitive enough to detect abnormal activation patterns in symptomatic concussed individuals and that it could provide an objective way to measure the severity of or recovery from a concussion. With support from the CFI, his team has acquired an Ultra High Performance MRI system (housed at the Montreal General Hospital) that will help observe the brain’s response to trauma with improved precision. More recently, he has been investigating mild TBI in motor vehicle accident victims and in children.  In a separate neurostimulation study, sponsored by the U.S. Army and aiming to stimulate neuroplasticity following mild TBI, Dr. Ptito is investigating whether electrically stimulating the tongue, combined with intensive physiotherapy, is an effective treatment for relieving gait and balance deficits following mild to moderate traumatic brain injury.