Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Johnson received both her medical degree and PhD from the University of Glasgow, UK. She then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Douglas H. Smith, M.D. at the Dept. Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Center for Brain Injury and Repair.
Her research focuses on the chronic neuropathological sequelae of traumatic brain injury (TBI), including the links between TBI and neurodegenerative disease. Specifically, Dr Johnson has extensive experience in examining post—mortem brain tissue acutely and chronically following TBI in humans. In recent publications, Dr. Johnson and colleagues demonstrated that even a single TBI is associated with an increased incidence of Alzheimer-associated pathologies many years after injury. Moreover, it was identified that a single severe TBI can also induce chronic neuroinflammation, axonal pathology and blood brain barrier (BBB) permeability that can persist for months and even years in some individuals after injury. More recent work endeavors to better understand the specific mechanisms of BBB dysfunction both acutely and chronically post-TBI.
Understanding the temporal changes following TBI by examining both clinical material and utilizing novel model systems, will be critical for the development of treatments for TBI patients.