Tatiana Wolfe, Ph.D., is a tenure track assistant professor and medical imaging physicist within the UAMS Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC).
Dr Wolfe’s research focuses on myelin mechanisms of brain’s response to natural aging, as well as to therapeutic interventions. Dr Wolfe has particular interest in brain representations of aplastic cognitive function. Dr Wolfe uses advanced MRI modalities to map brain structure and function, including diffusion spectral imaging (DSI), quantitative T2 relaxometry (qMRI), and magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI). Recent advancements have expanded the number and quality of techniques available for brain mapping by MRI, directly impacting its analytical complexity. In order to make sense of multimodal brain studies while maintaining the biophysical integrity of these modernized measures, new methodologies are needed. Dr Wolfe’s lab works developing methods that combine advanced multimodal MRI measures into comprehensive data structures to investigate brain mechanisms in detailed manner. Dr Wolfe’s research is applied to patient populations receiving therapeutic interventions, such as cancer therapy, immunotherapy for Alzheimer’s disease related dementia (ADRD), or disease modifying therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS). The lab also investigates mechanisms of natural cognitive decline that occur later in life.
Complementary, Dr Wolfe also works in the clinical translation of advanced MRI. Dr Wolfe works in partnership with the UAMS Departments of Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, Neurology, and the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute (WPRCI) to provide advanced functional and structural MRI scans for patients receiving neuro-interventions, including neurosurgery for epilepsy and brain cancers, novel therapies for ADRD, and refractory psychiatric conditions. Dr Wolfe’s translational activities primarily involve engineering MRI techniques to attend each of these clinical populations.
Current: In March 2022, she joined the Department of Psychiatry in the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute to spearhead the Advanced Multimodal MRI initiative of the BIRC. Dr Wolfe is the technology director of the WPRCI 7T Study Group, and a member of the Cancer Therapeutics Program. She is also an RPL in the NIH-Funded NIGMS COBRE on Cancer Host (P20GM109005). Dr Wolfe is an active mentor for trainees at several levels, including postdoctoral fellows and undergraduate students. Among several honors, Dr Wolfe has recently been awarded a Scholarship in the prestigious NIH Advanced Research Institute (ARI) on Mental Health and Aging in 2024. She is also an active member of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) with special membership in the study groups for Psychiatric MR, Diffusion, White Matter, and Quantitative MRI.
Background: Dr Wolfe received her bachelor’s and her doctorate in medical physics from the Department of Physics of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in Brazil, where she has trained extensively in computational modeling of radiation transport using Monte Carlo simulations, soft matter interactions, molecular, biophysical, and physiological processes. She has completed an undergraduate fellowship at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center between 2012-2013 in investigating cellular effects of radiation interaction with internalized gold nanoparticles. She continued to be a postdoctoral fellow for the two following years in the Department of Radiation Oncology working with preclinical experimental radiation oncology and ultra-high field cancer MRI. In 2015, she joined the Horner Lab in the Center for Neuroregeneration at the Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute in Texas, to expand the work in developing a new MRI technology for imaging myelin changes in brain and spinal cord in vivo. She is inventor of two U.S. patents and two new disclosures under filling, both related to neuroregenerative electrical stimulation intervention (“nSIM devices and methods thereof”; “Intracavitary physiological feedback loop vagal stimulation for stroke control”), and noninvasive myelin MRI measurements (“Myelin Signal Isolation MRI”;“SHIFT Echo MRI”). She has served as medical imaging physicist research scientist in the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging and at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital at the Ohio State University until 2021.