Dr. Berman helped design and currently maintains the computerized intraoperative recordkeeping system used in the cardiac and neurosurgical operating rooms. This system captures all physiologic and anesthetic related data during surgical procedures. He is also a member of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center’s study group on cerebral arteriovascular malformations and investigates outcome differences for the available treatment options.

Dr. Heyer’s principal research is to elucidate mechanisms of surgical-associated cerebral injury that manifests itself as cerebral dysfunction determined by performance on a battery of neuropsychometric tests. The types of surgery associated with cerebral dysfunction are cardiac operations in which patients undergo cardiopulmonary bypass and vascular operations in which carotid endarterectomy is performed. The immediate goals are to document the incidence of cerebral injury, determine appropriate measures of injury, and postulate mechanisms that produce injury. Subsequently, strategies to ameliorate cerebral injury will be formulated and tested that will involve intraoperative procedures and cerebral protective medications.

Dr. Tibbs’ research interests focus upon a newly identified gene family which encodes Ih, the hyperpolarization-activated pacemaker channels of heart and brain. One area of research is the pursuit of a molecular and biophysical understanding of the unusual activation, permeation and modulation properties of these channels, properties central to their ability to act as molecular rhythm generators. A second area of interest in his laboratory is to determine the contribution of these channels to thalamic and higher order physiology with particular emphasis on establishing if Ih dependent rhythmic activities in thalamic structures are indeed cellular drives underlying the conscious and unconscious states. The approaches employed encompass a combination of molecular biological and electrophysiological techniques.