Melanie Fields
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
When the blood carries too little oxygen, the brain has to work harder to get what it needs. This strain, called cerebral metabolic stress, may disrupt how the brain develops and how well people think.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
iron deficiency anemia
sickle cell anemia
sickle cell disease
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Compare cerebral metabolic stress and oxygen metabolism, measured by brain MRI, between females aged 12–21 with iron deficiency anemia and matched non-anemic females.
- Find the hemoglobin threshold at which brain metabolism fails and test whether functional connectivity and cognition recover, using weekly MRI in girls receiving intravenous iron therapy.
- Relate cerebral metabolic stress at IDA diagnosis to white matter microstructure and cognitive ability one year later, using longitudinal MRI and cognitive evaluation.
- Test whether disruption of the brain's structural and functional connectome in children with sickle cell anemia reverses after red blood cell transfusion, using MRI before and after transfusion.
- Determine whether elevated oxygen extraction fraction and connectivity measures predict abnormal cognitive trajectories over three years in children with sickle cell anemia.
More about the research
The research uses brain MRI and cognitive testing in young people with two types of anemia (a shortage of healthy red blood cells): iron deficiency anemia and sickle cell anemia. The central questions are which kinds of brain damage can be reversed with treatment and which cannot.
Why it matters
Adolescent girls with iron deficiency anemia face higher stroke risk and lower school performance. This work may support changes to anemia screening and to iron therapy recommendations for them. In children with sickle cell anemia, current tools detect only stroke risk or permanent damage. MRI biomarkers developed here could improve how doctors judge patient risk, measure the effects of new treatments, and guide care to limit cognitive decline.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hanzhang Lu
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biomedical Engineering
Develop VICTR MRI, a non-contrast method that measures venous transit time from changes in T1 relaxation, in six major brain veins including the superior sagittal sinus and internal jugular veins.
Mary Dawn Koenig
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether taking the probiotic Lactiplantibacillus plantarum 299v (LP299V®) with an iron prenatal supplement keeps hemoglobin and iron levels stable and lowers anemia rates, in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial of 200 at-risk pregnant participants.
Krystalyn Hudson
University of Virginia, VA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether red blood cell units rich in reticulocytes, young red cells that still contain mitochondria, raise alloantibody rates after transfusion, using mouse models that mimic repeat blood donation.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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