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Dr. William Trescher is a research scientist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. He is also an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Biographical Sketch:
Dr. Trescher received his BA magna cum laude at Dartmouth, where he won the Ralph P. Holben Sociology Prize, and went on to receive his medical training at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. After an internship and residency in pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, and a residency in neurology at Children’s Hospital National Medical Center in Washington DC, Dr. Trescher came to Johns Hopkins for a fellowship in Neuroscience Research in 1989. Dr. Trescher is currently the Medical Director of Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology at Kennedy Krieger Institute.
Dr. Trescher is a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the Child Neurology Society, the Society for Neuroscience, and the American Epilepsy Society. He served as an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology from 1999-2000. He has won the National Institute of Health Short Term Research Training Award for Medical Students (1980-81) and the Gilbert Nurick Medical Achievement Award (1983), and is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Society (1983).
Research Summary:
Brain injury in children can cause changes in many areas, including cognition, movement, personality and sensory perception. Seizures commonly occur after brain injury in the immature brain; however, the contribution seizures to brain injury and the mechanisms by which they occur are not fully understood.
Dr. Trescher’s research explores the effects of injury the developing brain. In one recent study with rats, for example, Dr. Trescher found that modest lowering of body temperature delayed the expression of brain injury from neonatal hypoxic-ischemic insult to the brain. More recently, he has collaborated with members of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins to examine the relationship of early seizures to injury in the immature brain. Finally, he has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Shared Instrumentation Grant to develop a research neurophysiological monitoring program in the F.M. Kirby Center for Functional Brain Imaging.
Neurotransmitter substances which normally facilitate brain development may accumulate and perturb normal development in a child with seizures, metabolic disorders, or head trauma. Through research on brain development both in humans and lab animals, Dr. Trescher hopes to understand more precisely how accumulated neurotransmitters cause brain injury on the molecular level. Once doctors know the neurophysiological signatures of particular conditions, they will be able to develop new strategies for protecting the brain from injury. | 