Centers of the MR3 Network


NC NM4R logo

The National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation (NC NM4R) supports researchers and clinicians who are currently working in the field of neuromodulation for rehabilitation and who are interested in gaining immediate knowledge and training in cutting edge and next generation NM4R applications. These applications allow us to study neuroplastic changes associated with brain stimulation and operant conditioning and help understand mechanisms of neuroplasticity and will help members develop new rehabilitation interventions.

Members of the NC NM4R community are eligible to attend workshops and conferences in neuromodulation, access webinars and saved presentations, apply for pilot project funding, and collaborate with other members of the community. Additionally, members will be given access to our extensive research data base to further enhance their research and practice.

The National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation is the Coordinating Center for the Medical Rehabilitation Research Network.

Steven Kautz, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Medical University of South Carolina
NIH grant P2CHD086844

AR3T logo

The Alliance for Regenerative Rehabilitation Research and Training is an NIH-funded resource center that helps to develop research collaborations, provides educational and research opportunities, and funds pilot projects and technology development projects that will benefit the Regenerative Rehabilitation research community. The alliance of our five institutions, comprising over twenty laboratories across the Harvard University; University of Pittsburgh; Stanford University; University of California, Los Angeles; the Mayo Clinic; and the University of Texas at Austin campuses, is in place to support these efforts. The overarching goal of AR3T is to support the expansion of scientific knowledge, expertise and methodologies across the domains of rehabilitation science and regenerative medicine, growing the field of Regenerative Rehabilitation.

The focus of rehabilitation science is the use of mechanical and other stimuli to promote functional recovery. Regenerative medicine focuses on the repair or replacement of tissue lost to injury, disease, or age, primarily via the enhancement of endogenous stem cell function or the transplantation of exogenous stem cells. The field of Regenerative Rehabilitation integrates these two approaches, with the ultimate goal of optimizing outcomes.

Fabrisia Ambrosio, Ph.D., MPT, Harvard University, Principal Investigator
Michael Boninger, M.D., University of Pittsburgh, Principal Investigator
Thomas Rando, M.D., Ph.D.; University of Californa, Los Angeles; Principal Investigator
Harvard University and University of Pittsburgh (with University of Californa, Los Angeles; the Mayo Clinic; and the University of Texas at Austin)
NIH grant P2CHD086843

RESTORE logo

The Center for Reliable Sensor Technology-Based Outcomes for Rehabilitation (RESTORE) provides vital research infrastructure and training opportunities to researchers in rehabilitation medicine, computer science, and bioengineering who are applying mobile technology to revolutionize how we diagnose, monitor, and treat mobility limitations.

Scott L. Delp, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Stanford University
NIH grant P2CHD101913

C-STAR logo

The Center for Smart Use of Technology to Assess Real-world Outcomes (C-STAR) leverages the collective experience of clinicians, scientists, engineers and patients to support the smart use of technology to assess performance in the laboratory, clinic and community. By measuring performance across these domains, rehabilitation researchers and clinicians will be able to both track real-world outcomes and investigate mechanisms underlying response to therapy or disease progression. The resources C-STAR offers to the rehabilitation community include its leaders at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Northwestern University, who have 20 years of cumulative experience with the R24 national infrastructure network, and other senior scientists who are experienced in the application of technology to help medical rehabilitation patients and mentorship of junior researchers.

Individuals or teams may connect with C-STAR to utilize center resources to:

  • Learn: Access webinars, courses, podcasts and workshops
  • Participate: Apply for pilot project funding or sabbaticals. Participate in an IdeaLab or request mentorship from our experts across four domains (engineering, clinical, outcomes, implementation science and community engagement).
  • Retrieve: Access and discover data sets and instruments from the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab’s Rehabilitation Measures Database, a leading national resource for benchmarks and outcomes.

Richard L. Lieber, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
William Z. Rymer, M.D., Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
NIH grant P2CHD101899

LeaRRn logo

The Learning Health Systems Rehabilitation Research Network (LeaRRn) center's overarching objective is to establish a national resource network to advance stakeholder-partnered, rehabilitation LHS research to improve quality of care, demonstrate value, and enhance patient and system outcomes.

LeaRRn will provide training to promote 7 core LHS research competencies:

  1. using a system science approach,
  2. asking meaningful questions,
  3. applying appropriate research methods,
  4. capitalizing on informatics,
  5. championing research ethics,
  6. optimizing quality improvement and implementation science, and
  7. engagement, leadership and research management.

LeaRRn will support research innovation by convening health system stakeholders to first identify priority topics to improve the quality and value of rehabilitation care. Through mentored collaborations (i.e., LHS Scholar opportunities) and mentored pilot studies, health systems and researchers will collaborate to address these topics. Finally, through techniques development, we will assess the needs of the rehabilitation research community, prioritize and design our resources to respond to those needs and evaluate our impact.

Linda Resnik, PT, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Brown University
NIH grant P2CHD101895

C-PROGRESS logo

The National Pediatric Rehabilitation Resource Center (C-PROGRESS) at Virginia Tech in Roanoke and The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus provides research infrastructure supports to conduct rigorous clinical trials to test and implement evidence-based interventions in pediatric medical rehabilitation.

Specific aims are:

  1. to provide workshops, webinars, and demonstrations related to conducting high-impact clinical trials, including multicomponent and multiphase treatments;
  2. to support innovative interdisciplinary research mentoring and partnerships);
  3. to develop critically-needed techniques to measure neurobiological markers and biobehavioral outcomes;
  4. to fund pilot studies in partnership with national organizations to yield data for NIH pediatric medical rehabilitation trials; and
  5. to promote C-PROGRESS expertise by advertising and working with major associations.

C-PROGRESS also is leading the preparation of a much-needed comprehensive, interdisciplinary reference manual (print and online with dynamic updates) to address clinical and scientific issues inherent in pediatric medical rehabilitation research.

Sharon Landesman Ramey, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Virginia Tech
NIH grant P2CHD101912




Past MR3 Network Centers

The Medical Rehabilitation Research Resource Network gratefully acknowledges the participation of these resource centers in phase one of the MR3 Network:

The Alliance for Regenerative Rehabilitation Research & Training (AR3T) is a current member of MR3N.  Please see above for more information.

The Center for Large Data Research and Data Sharing in Rehabilitation (CLDR) supports the development of knowledge and rehabilitation research capacity by increasing the quantity and quality of rehabilitation outcomes research using large administrative and research datasets. The center's current focus is on data sharing and archiving information from completed rehabilitation research studies, with a long-term goal of helping to create a research environment and culture where rehabilitation scientists will have the skills and knowledge to become significant contributors to the changes in health care policy and practice that are being driven through the use of large data and the unprecedented expansion of health care information that has occurred in recent years.

Kenneth Ottenbacher, Ph.D., OTR, Principal Investigator
The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston (with Cornell University and the University of Michigan)
NIH grant P2CHD065702

The National Center for Simulation in Rehabilitation Research (NCSRR) works to equip the rehabilitation research community with state-of-the-art simulation tools, enabling investigators to complement experimental studies of human performance with advanced simulation software and biomechanical models. The center's freely available simulation tool, OpenSim, is already used by hundreds of research teams around the world to advance rehabilitation science.

Scott L. Delp, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Stanford University
NIH grants R24HD065690 and P2CHD065690

The National Center of Neuromodulation for Rehabilitation (NC NM4R) is a current member of MR3N.  Please see above for more information.

The Rehabilitation Research Resource to Enhance Clinical Trials (REACT) served as a national resource for the medical rehabilitation research community providing the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to catalyze high-impact, interdisciplinary clinical trials. The center can help investigators successfully design and conduct clinical trials that can fill key gaps in medical rehabilitation and thereby optimize patient care. The Center also funds pilot studies and provides education, collaboration, data sharing, consultative services, and access to core facilities to the national research community; all with the goal of fostering innovative clinical and translational research and, ultimately, definitive clinical trials.

Marcas Bamman, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (with Baylor College of Medicine).
NIH grant P2CHD086851

Translation of Rehabilitation Engineering Advances and Technology (TREAT) is a collaborative consortium that provides tailored experiential learning programs have been created to help innovators navigate the challenging commercialization process. The collective expertise of our team, member organizations, and collaborating institutions is leveraged to provide early stage product evaluation, technology assessment, prototype development, commercialization planning and execution, and to develop and foster a pragmatic approach to conducting comparative effectiveness clinical trials.

Richard Greenwald, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Jonathan D. Lurie, M.D., M.S., Principal Investigator
Simbex (with The Dartmouth Institute, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, and Boston University)
NIH grants R24HD065703 and P2CHD086841