SCD Project - Pain, cerebral autoregulation, and cognition

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a debilitating disease that impacts many organs, including the brain, and unfortunately half of fatalities occur in ages 45 years and older. SCD occurs from an inherited blood disorder where red blood cells become sickled, impede capillary blood flow, and may cause a pain crisis and the need for emergency care. Noninvasive imaging has identified cerebral structural, vascular, and functional biomarkers that have positively transformed the outcome in patients with SCD.  Our research lab and our collaborators are interested in determining the correlations of cerebral structural, vascular, and functional biomarkers using combined NIRS-EEG-MRI to improve patient outcome in SCD. We will specifically focus on the effects that SCD has on cognition and pain to improve the quality of life of those living with the disease.

Collaborators

Neural Accessibility and Racial Equity in Devices

Our team is comprised of talented students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates and faculty across three labs — Biophotonics Lab, Grover Lab and Wood Neuro Research Group. This research project focuses on identifying and eliminating systemic racial, physiological, and physical biases inherent in wearable medical and neuroimaging devices. In collaboration with other engineering faculties, CMU-Africa, University of Ghana, University of Rwanda and American University in Cairo, our group develops equity-based hardware and signal processing solutions. The project specifically targets improving the signal quality of electroencephalography (EEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and pulse oximeters for individuals with coarse, curly African hair types and darker skin pigmentation who have historically been excluded or misdiagnosed by these technologies.

Collaborators

Patient-specific cerebral hemodynamics in sickle cell disease

We use patient-specific vascular imaging and computational fluid dynamics to understand how sickle cell disease changes blood flow in the brain and how those changes may relate to stroke risk.

In a close collaboration with Biomedical Flows Simulation & Multiscale Modeling lab, this project utilizes high-resolution MRI datasets to construct patient-specific computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. By measuring patient-specific cerebral blood flow velocities and complex hemodynamic parameters in adults with SCD, the project directly links micro- and macro-vascular dysfunction (such as vessel occlusion and wall stiffness) to overarching neural outcomes, cognitive impairment, and stroke risk stratification.

Collaborators

Brain networks, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience

Our research goal is to study the cortical and subcortical regions of the brain responsible for various cognitive functions such as decision-making, attention, and pain perceptions. We are especially interested in the role demographics such as race, gender, and cultural experience play in neural representations and discover any neural variations. Furthermore, we also want to examine the underlying process and identify any variations when humans are compromised with neurological or neurovascular diseases. Historically, the literature examining these questions has been scarce due to technological limitations, in which tools such as EEG and NIRS are noisier in specific populations than others. Thus, in addition to using state-of-the-art neural technologies to record brain activities, we have developed novel hardware and software to combine with the existing technologies to help answer these questions. We created simple and complex tasks designed to understand how neural circuits compute information and map out the organizational structure of the brain; and we further interpret the results due to demographics and disease.

Collaborators

Pain phenotyping and objective SCD pain biomarkers

We study how people with sickle cell disease describe pain and how those pain phenotypes relate to brain network activity.

Our group investigates the neurological markers of chronic pain in adults with sickle cell disease by mapping brain connectivity through the following methods:

• Cortical Signatures: Identifying how the brain processes the transition from standard sensation to pain.

• Network Connectivity: Studying how nociceptive (physical injury) and neuropathic (nerve damage) pain descriptors correlate with activity in specific brain networks (like the default mode, salience, and somatosensory networks).

• Predictive ML Tools: Leveraging machine learning and mobile tools (like Painimation) to identify predictive features of chronic pain phenotypes.

Collaborators

Imaging Disease Modifying Therapies in SCD

This multi-site study combines imaging and physiological monitoring to evaluate how disease-modifying therapies improve cerebral blood flow, oxygenation, and cognitive function in adults with sickle cell disease.

This is a multi-site study across Pittsburgh, PA and Nigeria—in close collaboration with Dr. Julia Xu's research team at UPMC—to evaluate the real-world effects of disease-modifying therapies on adults with sickle cell disease. Having successfully recruited roughly 100 participants across the study sites, this project represents one of the few international, multimodal imaging and rheological datasets of its kind. The study utilizes diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (FD-NIRS) to assess how interventions like raising hemoglobin levels affect microvascular hemodynamics, cerebral blood flow, neural activity, and peripheral tissue oxygenation alongside cognitive processing, vascular occlusion challenges, and paced breathing.

Studies: ACHiEvE-SCD, VASC

Relevant Proceedings:

• Momoh, S., Tukakira, J. Meinert-Spyker, E., Candra, L., Ibrahim, TS, Novelli, E.M., Wu, M., Wood, S., Xu, J., “Sex-related differences in silent cerebral infarction burden among adults with sickle cell disease,” Blood, Volume 146, Supplement 1, 2025 https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2025-1193.
• Jallepalli, D., Roy, S., Meinert-Spyker, E., Xu, J., Wood, S. “Cerebral and Peripheral Microvascular Function in Sickle Cell Disease: Blood Flow and Oxygen Extraction via Diffuse Correlation and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy,” Blood, Volume 146, Supplement 1, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2025-2937. 
• Kiriza, N., Abdelmohsen, L., Meinert-Spyker, E., Tukakira, J., Oluwole, F., Adiat, A., Disu, J., Mossazghi, N., Jonassaint, J., Olesugun Joseph, D. A., Osunkalu, V., Oluwole, O., DeCastro, L., Novelli, E., Adeyemo, T., Wood, S., Xu, J., “Raising hemoglobin level with erythropoietin improves cerebral but not muscle tissue oxygenation in patients with sickle cell disease,” Blood, Volume 146, Supplement 1, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2025-2964.
• Abdelmohsen, L., Mossazghi, N., Roy, S., Disu, J., Meinert-Spyker, E., Saber, C., Xu, J. Z., Wood, S., “Assessing the Impact of Cognitive Load on Resting State Tissue Oxygen Saturation in Adult Patients with Sickle Cell Disease,” Blood, Volume 144, Supplement 1, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2024-208977. 
• Disu, J., Abdelmohsen, L., Mossazghi, N., Meinert-Spyker, E., Saber, C., Xu, J. Z., Wood, S., “Dynamic Cerebral Autoregulation and Blood Pressure Reveal the Severity of Autoregulatory Dysfunction in Sickle Cell Disease,” Blood, Volume 144, Supplement 1, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2024-210312. 
• Saber, C., Meinert-Spyker, E., Abdelmohsen, L., Philips, B., Disu, J., Mossazghi, N., Kiriza, N., Nouraie, S., Oluwole, O., DeCastro, L., Straub, A., Novelli, E., Wood, S., Xu, J., Z., “Higher Hemoglobin Level Correlates with Increased Tissue Oxygenation in a Comprehensive Profile of Hemorheology in Sickle Cell Disease,” Blood, Volume 144, Supplement 1, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2024-203346.

Collaborators