CENTER FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE & OTHER MOVEMENT DISORDERS
Movement Disorders
Stanley Fahn, Director
Clinical research involving most aspects of movement disorders: dystonia and tardive syndromes; clinical pharmacology; genetics of movement disorders; clinical and surgical trials of new therapies for Parkinson disease, dystonia and myoclonus; rating scales; and experimental therapeutics for movement disorders.
Blair Ford
Center for Movement Disorder Surgery
Clinical research on Parkinson disease, dystonia, tremor, Tourette syndrome, and other movement disorders, including trials of new pharmacological agents, and surgical approaches to Parkinson disease and other tremor.
Steven Frucht
Clinical research in the phenomenology and experimental therapeutics of movement disorders, including Parkinson disease, myoclonus, dystonia, chorea and tics. Current projects include clinical trials of new treatments for Parkinson disease, evaluation and development of new treatments for myoclonus, and evaluation and treatment of focal task-specific dystonias, including musician’s dystonia.
Paul Greene
Clinical phenomenology of movement disorders, experimental therapeutics for Parkinson disease (including transplantation techniques) and botulinum toxin therapy for dystonia.
Elan D. Louis
Clinical, epidemiological, and genetic aspects of essential tremor, Parkinson disease, and Huntington disease.
Cheryl Waters
Clinical drug trials for Parkinson disease. Clinical research on other parkinsonian syndromes and movement disorders.
Robert E. Burke
Director PD Research Lab
The Burke Laboratory
Studies of mechanisms of programmed cell death in models of neurodegeneration related to disorders of the basal ganglia, especially parkinsonism. Studies are conducted both in vivo and in vitro, utilizing immunohistochemistry, quantitative morphologic analysis, in situ hybridization, differential display, receptor autoradiography, and enzyme assays.
Asa Abeliovich
The study of molecular bases of midbrain dopamine neuron function and survival. Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to play key roles in learned and addictive behaviors, and degeneration of these neurons underlies Parkinson disease.
William Dauer
Research focuses on creating and characterizing genetic mouse models of basal ganglia disease, generated through the use of gene targeting. The present emphasis is on the characterizing DYT1 and alpha-synuclein mutants, using anatomic, biochemical and behavioral approaches. Additionally, the laboratory is also involved in strategies that allow region and temporal-specific expression of pathogenic protein in the nervous system.
Serge Przedborski
Neuroscience Research Laboratory
Study of toxin-induced damage to neurotransmitter systems pertinent to movement disorders such as Parkinson disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Huntington disease. Modes of cell death and free radical-induced toxicity are also investigated. SOD1 mutant transgenic mice serve as a model for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Methods include transgenic mice, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, quantitative morphology, receptor binding, HPLC, and classical histology.
David Sulzer
Sulzer Laboratory
Study of dopamine synaptic plasticity and its pharmacological manipulation by drugs used for treatment of Parkinson disease and schizophrenia, as well as modulation by intrinsic synaptic proteins. Investigations also include mechanisms of addictive drugs associated with dopamine systems and cell culture models of catecholamine neurotoxicity and neurodegeneration. Methods include electrophysiology, electrochemistry, HPLC, quantitative microscopy, molecular biology, and neuronal cell culture.
Seth Pullman
Clinical Motor Physiology Laboratory
Areas of research include movement analysis, brainstem and spinal reflexes, botulinum toxin injections into limbs, intraoperative single unit recordings during functional neurosurgery, mathematical modeling, and artificial intelligence approaches to clinical and physiological data. Current projects include sophisticated diagnosis-oriented tremor analysis, back averaging EEG to EMG and polymyography, handwriting and spiral analysis, transcranial magnetic motor evoked responses, reaction time and movement speed analysis in patients undergoing surgery for Parkinson's disease, intraoperative monitoring during pallidotomy and diagnostic neural network paradigm development.
Claude P.J. Ghez
The neurological mechanisms underlying the initiation and control of reaching movement are studied by kinematic, electromyographic analyses, PET, and fMRI in normal humans and patients with cerebral or cerebellar lesions. In trained cats, deficits in kinematic control are analyzed following reversible inactivation of motor cortex and cerebellum. Other anatomic brain pathways relevant to movement are also being investigated.
Michael Goldberg
John W. Krakauer
Dr. Krakauer’s research has been NIH funded and his interests include (1) trajectory control and motor learning during reaching movements in healthy subjects and in patients with stroke. (2) Functional brain imaging of motor learning and stroke recovery.
Pietro Mazzoni
The Motor Performance Laboratory
The Motor Performance Laboratory is a research facility dedicated to the study of the neural basis of limb movement control in health and neurologic disease.
Aging, Memory & Dementia