Spinal reflexes take important part in our movement. After spinal cord injury (SCI), reflexes often change. For many years, researchers and doctors have assumed that abnormally acting spinal reflexes lead to movement problems, without clear scientific evidence. For example, in people who suffer spasticity, a common problem after SCI, walking is disturbed, presumably because stretch reflexes (e.g., knee jerk reflex) and some other reflexes are not working well. Yet, which reflex is causing a problem in what way has not been well understood. Such understanding is very important in developing and applying effective therapies for improving gait recovery after SCI. Therefore, in this project, we are studying spinal stretch reflexes and other reflexes during walking, to understand how these reflexes contribute to spastic gait problems in people with chronic incomplete SCI. Successful completion of this project will result in better understanding of spastic gait problems, which in turn, will help us develop more effective therapy application and improve the quality of life in people after SCI.

Over many years, we have learnt that the brain's connections with the spinal cord change in response to injury or training. Because brain-spinal cord (i.e., corticospinal) pathways are very important in movement control, restoring function of these pathways could help to restore useful movement after spinal cord injury (SCI). In this project, we hypothesize that operant conditioning training of the muscle response to non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation can strengthen the functional connectivity of corticospinal pathways and thereby alleviate movement problems in people with chronic incomplete SCI. This study will require about 38 visits over the first 3 months, and another 4 visits over an additional 3 months. Each visit will take about an hour.

Reflexes are important parts of our movements. When reflexes are not working well, movements are clumsy or even impossible. After spinal cord injury, reflex responses may change. Researchers have found that people can learn to increase or decrease a reflex response with training. Recently, we have found that rats with spinal cord injuries can walk better after they are trained to change a spinal reflex. Thus, learning to change a reflex response may help people recover after a nervous system injury. In this study, we aim to examine whether learning to change a spinal reflex through operant conditioning training can improve movement function recovery after spinal cord injury.

The purpose of the MUSC Pulmonary Biorepository is to collect and store samples linked to medical and other information from individuals with pulmonary disease as well as healthy controls.

In combination with the clinical data and other approved research studies (that may recruit for and/or utilize samples of the biorepository) this sample repository will provide for uniform, longitudinal, complete and accurate data that can be organized and clinically correlated at the time of sample donation, with longitudinal testing possible as part of future study. Samples will be linked to each participant's unique ID, though will be deidentified and coded for use in future research and subsequent publications with pulmonary disease and control patients.

Adult and Pediatric patients with glomerular disease:
Patients of all ages are needed to participate in a research study to investigate glomerular disease and create a worldwide database to help in the research and future treatment of this disease. To join this study, you must have a type of glomerular disease, have had a first kidney biopsy within the last 5 years, not be on dialysis, or not have had a kidney transplant.

The study is projected to last 4 years, and all study procedures will be done at regular clinic visits (between 1 and 3 yearly). Study procedures include filling out questionnaires and a blood draw at each visit.

Compensation is available for study participation.

The current investigation uses a brain-based technique, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which has helped to treat depression, to try to stimulate those brain regions understood to be essential to emotional experience and impaired in PTSD. In summary, the aim is to enhance emotion engagement and regulation and possibly uncover new brain-based interventions that could help ready the brain so an individual with PTSD could then fully engage and thus optimize emotion-focused psychotherapy.

RESTORE is a database of individuals who are interested in being contacted about future stroke research at the Medical University of South Carolina. Included in the database is health information and characteristics about the individual's health, stroke, and their recovery. The results of other stroke recovery studies the individual participates in at MUSC will also be in the database. The database and information included will lead to better and more targeted recruitment for stroke recovery projects.

Heart disease can be detected in the hospital by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR)- a device that uses a large magnet. CMR is used to test how healthy the heart muscle is and how well the heart is pumping. We will test a new method to see how helpful it is to quickly get good pictures and if this is useful for testing the health of heart muscle in patients with heart disease.

This is an exploratory study and the information obtained may lead to new findings regarding the inflammatory and neurodegenerative mechanisms in the progression of PD and help to develop new drugs to halt the disease progression. The study simply involves a one time blood draw.

The purpose of this research registry is to better understand the natural history of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and current practice patterns. The IPF-PRO registry will be used to collect data and biological samples that will support future research studies by identifying disease biomarkers for IPF. Through these studies, researchers hope to find new ways to detect, treat, and maybe prevent or cure health problems. Some of these studies may be about how genes affect health and disease, or how a person's genes affect their response to a treatment. Some of these studies may lead to new products, such as drugs or tests for diseases. We are asking you to let us collect and store some of your blood and health information so they might be used in these kinds of future studies.

If you are newly diagnosed with IPF and are eligible for participation in IPF-PRO, you will be asked to sign a consent form to become enrolled if you agree to be in this registry. At enrollment a member of MUSC research staff will collect information from you and about your medical history and medical care, as well as information about the types of health insurance (public or private) that you have. As part of your participation in this registry, you will be required to sign a medical release form giving permission for your medical records to be reviewed for the purposes of data collection for the registry. This is an observational registry which means you will not receive any investigational treatments or investigational drugs, and only minimally invasive procedures will be performed (blood draws) at scheduled clinic visits. In addition to the face to face visits for self-administered participant reported questionnaires and blood collection, at roughly 6-month intervals, sites will review the participant's medical records. Your disease management and treatment decisions will be determined by you and your health care professional. Subjects will be followed until the last enrolled subject has been followed for 3 years up to a maximum of 5 years.