Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute continues to grow and thrive, we are pleased to welcome Paria Arfa-Fatollahkhani, MD, MSc, to the Institute. In her new role as Clinical Research Lead, she is working in the Human Motor Recovery Laboratory, Directed by Dylan Edwards, PhD.
Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani was awarded her MD from Iran University of Medical Sciences. While in medical school, she conducted a randomized clinical trial examining the effects of treadmill training on balance, functional capacity, and quality of life in individuals with Parkinson’s disease as her dissertation project. Through this project, Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani became more interested in research, and she decided to enroll in an interdisciplinary master’s degree program in Biomechanics and Movement Science at the University of Delaware.
Her master’s thesis project in the Human Robotics Lab at the University of Delaware investigated the inhibitory effect of subthreshold transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the stretch-evoked long latency responses of forearm muscles. Stretching a muscle results in a reflex response including short-latency reflex (SLR) and delayed long-latency reflex (LLR) components, and Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani’s work, under the mentorship of Fabrizio Sergi, PhD, helped elucidate the neural circuits and mechanisms of muscle stretch reflexes.
Upon completion of her master’s degree, Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani accepted a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Motor Recovery Research Lab within the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. During her research fellowship under the supervision of Preeti Raghavan, MD, her work focused on motor recovery after stroke and other cerebral injuries.
In particular, she studied the peripheral modulation of muscle stiffness and spasticity using hyaluronidase, an enzyme that catalyzes the degradation of Hyaluronic Acid. She and her colleagues were involved in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled Phase II trial of human recombinant hyaluronidase injections to address post-stroke stiffness in upper limb muscles.
In her current role at our Institute, Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani is working on a phase III, multi-center clinical trial evaluating an intensive, home-based telerehabilitation treatment for motor recovery after stroke. This NIH-funded study (The TR-2 Trial) is co-led by Steven C. Cramer, MD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, and Medical Director of Research at California Rehabilitation Hospital, and Dr. Edwards, the Nancy Wachtel Shrier Director of Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute and Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The results of this clinical trial have the potential to dramatically increase access to high-quality rehabilitation services, increase the amount of therapy that patients receive after stroke, and improve stroke rehabilitation worldwide.
We are excited to welcome Dr. Arfa-Fatollahkhani to our team!