The Department of Veterans Affairs provides health care to over 4 million veterans (of the estimated 24+ million veterans living in the United States. The VHA's Office of Research and Development is an intramural program which provides funding for research focused on veteran needs with and emphasis on service connected injuries and illnesses--because it supports research within its own health care system it has great potential for serving as the clinical arm of the federal research enterprise. Neurotrauma is an important component of the VHA research portfolio, focusing on research issues ranging from "care to cure" (including assistive technology, overcoming impairment, neural restoration/regeneration). The VA has formal inpatient programs for spinal injury and traumatic brain injury. The prevalence of spinal cord injury in VA is 10-15,000, and the annual incidence has recently increased from 100 to 160 (due to deployment experiences). Hearing impairment is the most common service connected impairment (300,000 veterans have service connected hearing loss of 10% or greater). 60% of veterans admitted for traumatic injuries of all kinds have documented cognitive deficits consistent with traumatic brain injury.
Mechanisms for funding in VA, an overview of ongoing research in neural prosthetics, robotics, and virtual reality will be given.

Mindy Aisen MD
CEO/Director United Cerebral Palsy Research and Education Foundation
(Previously, Director Rehabilitation Research and Development Department of Veterans Affairs)