Dr. Robert Bartha's research aims to identify and explore chemical changes in the brain. More specifically, his work as a member of the CFMM, involves developing methods in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and spectroscopy to investigate chemical changes that occur in brain tissue as a result of disease or injury.

Measuring those chemicals -- known broadly as metabolites -- is of great importance for understanding how and why tissue damage occurs in conditions such as stroke, cancer, epilepsy, and mental illness. Using the high field (4 Tesla) MRI scanner at Robarts, Dr. Bartha has developed advanced methods for measuring individual metabolite levels, particularly at very low concentrations in highly localized regions of the brain.

Dr. Bartha is also currently studying the very early changes in tissue metabolism that occur when blood flow to a specific region stops. These changes -- when correlated with tissue death and dysfunction -- can help provide diagnostic "markers" not only for clinicians to better assess patients but for other researchers to develop new and better drugs that could protect brain tissue from further damage. The techniques developed to study the metabolic changes associated with stroke are also being applied to study the metabolic changes that occur in low grade glioma (a type of brain cancer), epilepsy and mental illness.

Dr. Bartha pursued his undergraduate degree in honours physics at the University of Waterloo and completed a PhD in medical physics at The University of Western Ontario. He went on to do postdoctoral research at Robarts, under the supervision of Dr. Ravi Menon, and also at the University of Minnesota before joining Robarts as a Scientist in 2001.

Contact Info:

Robert Bartha
Imaging Research Laboratories
Robarts Research Institute
Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry
The University of Western Ontario
P.O. Box 5015, 100 Perth Drive
London, ON, Canada N6A 5K8
Phone: (519) 663-5777 x24039
Fax: (519) 931-5224
rob.bartha<at>imaging.robarts.ca