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    My clinical interests focus on the interface between psychiatry and movement disorders. Areas of interest include traditionally psychiatric movement disorders (including Huntington's disease, Tourette syndrome, tardive dyskinesia, catatonia, motor signs in affective and psychotic disorders, and so-called psychogenic movement disorders) as well as psychological symptoms in traditionally neurological movement disorders (e.g. Parkinson's disease, Sydenham's chorea, HD, and dystonia). Clinically I am especially interested in treatment and nosology, including investigator-initiated clinical research.
    My imaging research is influenced by these clinical interests and is primarily focused on functional imaging of the dopaminergic system. In many diseases (e.g. idiopathic dystonia, schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome) there are a number of reasons to suspect a functional abnormality of dopamine-influenced basal ganglia circuits, yet many studies of specific elements of these pathways have been equivocal or negative. By giving a dopamine agonist, we "push on" these systems in a manner analogous to clinical challenge tests, and measure the response using PET and functional MRI methods. I have collaborated with Drs. Joel Perlmutter, Tamara Hershey, and others on studies of Parkinson's disease and idiopathic dystonia. I am now working on methods development with pharmacological fMRI (phMRI) and several studies of Tourette syndrome.

Selected Publications
 

For hot links to these or other publications: click here

kevin@wustl.edu
2111 East Bldg.
Phone: 314-362-6281
Fax: 314-362-0168
Campus Box: 8134
4525 Scott Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63110
http://www.nil.wustl.edu/~kevin