I have a unique background as a board-certified psychiatrist who also
completed a movement disorders fellowship (at Washington University, 1994-1996). Not surprisingly,
my clinical interests focus on the interface between psychiatry and movement disorders.
That interface includes movement disorders traditionally managed by psychiatrists (like
Huntington's disease, Tourette syndrome, tardive dyskinesia,
catatonia, and so-called psychogenic movement disorders), in addition to psychological
symptoms in other movement disorders (like Parkinson's disease and dystonia). I maintain a
clinical practice one half day a week at the Washington University Movement Disorders Center.
Most of my current imaging research is focused on Tourette syndrome,
including a prospective study of new-onset tics (with
Brad Schlaggar and Deanna Greene), a nascent TS imaging consortium (with Brad Schlaggar and
investigators from NYU, KKI/JHU, UCLA, and USC), a recently completed fMRI study of dopamine
function in TS using both cognitive and pharmacological probes (with Tamara Hershey), and a
levodopa challenge [11C]raclopride PET study (with Mark Mintun).
I have also developed a method for creating 3D statistical images
that show the likelihood that deep brain stimulation (DBS) at a given location in or near
the subthalamic nucleus (STN) will improve or worsen motor or nonmotor symptoms. Importantly,
this method also corrects for multiple comparisons. Sarah Eisenstein and other coworkers have
worked with me to test this method on previously collected DBS data (with Joel Perlmutter and
colleagues), and Tamara Hershey and I will be applying this method to analyze data from our
ongoing prospective study of DBS’s effects on mood in Parkinson disease.
Past research includes the
first ever functional imaging study in any
non-human species that averaged data across subjects in atlas space, the
first neuroimaging
study of Parkinson patients with ultradian levodopa-related mood fluctuations,
the first published human pharmacological
activation neuroimaging study of an investigational new drug, or to calculate quantitative
EC50 values, and a method for designing and analyzing pharmacologic challenge
fMRI (phMRI) experiments that, at least in simulated data, can reliably provide quantitative
pharmacodynamic information (such as EC50 in ng/mL) from a single imaging session
(patent application in prosecution).
Selected Publications (see more on ResearcherID or PubMed).
Prospective students or postdocs, please visit the lab WWW page.
work WWW page