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American Neurological Association (ANA): Annual Meeting 2017
Slow-wave sleep linked to Parkinson’s disease cognition
SAN DIEGO – Slow-wave sleep improves cognition in Parkinson’s disease, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham investigators.
After sleep studies, they compared the cognitive performance of 16 patients who spent more than 14% of their sleep time in slow-wave (SW) sleep with the cognitive performance of 16 who spent less than 14% in SW sleep; 13 of the patients in the low SW group (81%) met the criteria for mild Parkinson’s disease (PD) cognitive impairment versus 7 of the patients in the higher SW sleep group (44%); the patients were well matched for age, sex, disease duration, and other variables.
The normative value for SW sleep is about 15%-20%, although people spend less time in SW sleep as they age. The study subjects were in their mid-60s on average, so the 14% cut point wasn’t too far off from what might be considered typical.
More SW sleep in PD was associated with better performance on measures of global function, attention/working memory, executive function, and language comprehension. Patients in the low SW group, for instance, performed 0.25 standard deviations below the normative mean on attention/working memory tests, while subjects in the high SW group performed 0.5 standard deviations above, meaning that they outperformed people in their age group who didn’t have PD. These differences were statistically significant.
It raises the question of what can be done to help PD patients sleep better. “I’m interested in exercise to improve sleep, and we have some primary data that show it’s helpful for sleep in general but also SW sleep,” said Dr. Amara. Sodium oxybate (Xyrem) might also help, but for now, it’s a controlled substance approved only for narcolepsy. “We might have to branch out and try something novel,” she said. 
The next step is to “see if we can use SW sleep to predict who might have cognitive declines and find interventions to [prevent] it,” she said.
Patients in the study had been diagnosed with PD for a mean of about 7 years. People in the high SW group were on lower amounts of levodopa equivalents, however, the investigators controlled for that, as well as for the fact that women tend to spend more time in SW sleep than men. There were no differences between the groups in measures of movement problems and of subjective scores of sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.
People with high SW sleep fell asleep sooner than did those in the low SW groups, about 9 minutes versus 20 minutes. There was no correlation between visual-spatial function and SW sleep, but visual-spatial function did correlate with the amount of time spent in rapid eye movement sleep, suggesting that dreaming might be important for visual-spatial function, Dr. Amara said.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Amara had no relevant disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – Slow-wave sleep improves cognition in Parkinson’s disease, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham investigators.
After sleep studies, they compared the cognitive performance of 16 patients who spent more than 14% of their sleep time in slow-wave (SW) sleep with the cognitive performance of 16 who spent less than 14% in SW sleep; 13 of the patients in the low SW group (81%) met the criteria for mild Parkinson’s disease (PD) cognitive impairment versus 7 of the patients in the higher SW sleep group (44%); the patients were well matched for age, sex, disease duration, and other variables.
The normative value for SW sleep is about 15%-20%, although people spend less time in SW sleep as they age. The study subjects were in their mid-60s on average, so the 14% cut point wasn’t too far off from what might be considered typical.
More SW sleep in PD was associated with better performance on measures of global function, attention/working memory, executive function, and language comprehension. Patients in the low SW group, for instance, performed 0.25 standard deviations below the normative mean on attention/working memory tests, while subjects in the high SW group performed 0.5 standard deviations above, meaning that they outperformed people in their age group who didn’t have PD. These differences were statistically significant.
It raises the question of what can be done to help PD patients sleep better. “I’m interested in exercise to improve sleep, and we have some primary data that show it’s helpful for sleep in general but also SW sleep,” said Dr. Amara. Sodium oxybate (Xyrem) might also help, but for now, it’s a controlled substance approved only for narcolepsy. “We might have to branch out and try something novel,” she said.
The next step is to “see if we can use SW sleep to predict who might have cognitive declines and find interventions to [prevent] it,” she said.
Patients in the study had been diagnosed with PD for a mean of about 7 years. People in the high SW group were on lower amounts of levodopa equivalents, however, the investigators controlled for that, as well as for the fact that women tend to spend more time in SW sleep than men. There were no differences between the groups in measures of movement problems and of subjective scores of sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.
People with high SW sleep fell asleep sooner than did those in the low SW groups, about 9 minutes versus 20 minutes. There was no correlation between visual-spatial function and SW sleep, but visual-spatial function did correlate with the amount of time spent in rapid eye movement sleep, suggesting that dreaming might be important for visual-spatial function, Dr. Amara said.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Amara had no relevant disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – Slow-wave sleep improves cognition in Parkinson’s disease, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham investigators.
After sleep studies, they compared the cognitive performance of 16 patients who spent more than 14% of their sleep time in slow-wave (SW) sleep with the cognitive performance of 16 who spent less than 14% in SW sleep; 13 of the patients in the low SW group (81%) met the criteria for mild Parkinson’s disease (PD) cognitive impairment versus 7 of the patients in the higher SW sleep group (44%); the patients were well matched for age, sex, disease duration, and other variables.
The normative value for SW sleep is about 15%-20%, although people spend less time in SW sleep as they age. The study subjects were in their mid-60s on average, so the 14% cut point wasn’t too far off from what might be considered typical.
More SW sleep in PD was associated with better performance on measures of global function, attention/working memory, executive function, and language comprehension. Patients in the low SW group, for instance, performed 0.25 standard deviations below the normative mean on attention/working memory tests, while subjects in the high SW group performed 0.5 standard deviations above, meaning that they outperformed people in their age group who didn’t have PD. These differences were statistically significant.
It raises the question of what can be done to help PD patients sleep better. “I’m interested in exercise to improve sleep, and we have some primary data that show it’s helpful for sleep in general but also SW sleep,” said Dr. Amara. Sodium oxybate (Xyrem) might also help, but for now, it’s a controlled substance approved only for narcolepsy. “We might have to branch out and try something novel,” she said.
The next step is to “see if we can use SW sleep to predict who might have cognitive declines and find interventions to [prevent] it,” she said.
Patients in the study had been diagnosed with PD for a mean of about 7 years. People in the high SW group were on lower amounts of levodopa equivalents, however, the investigators controlled for that, as well as for the fact that women tend to spend more time in SW sleep than men. There were no differences between the groups in measures of movement problems and of subjective scores of sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.
People with high SW sleep fell asleep sooner than did those in the low SW groups, about 9 minutes versus 20 minutes. There was no correlation between visual-spatial function and SW sleep, but visual-spatial function did correlate with the amount of time spent in rapid eye movement sleep, suggesting that dreaming might be important for visual-spatial function, Dr. Amara said.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Amara had no relevant disclosures.
AT ANA 2017
Key clinical point:
Major finding: Thirteen patients in the low SW group (81%) met criteria for mild Parkinson’s disease (PD) cognitive impairment versus seven (44%) in the higher SW sleep group.
Data source: Cognitive testing of 32 patients with PD stratified by amount of SW sleep
Disclosures: The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The presenter had no relevant disclosures.
Post-Ebola syndrome includes neurologic sequelae
SAN DIEGO – Add neurologic issues to the growing list of medical problems faced by survivors of Ebola virus.
Among 153 Liberian patients about a year out from their acute illness, “there were only a handful who didn’t have” some lingering neurologic problem. “The most commonly reported ongoing symptoms were headache and memory loss. A couple of people had seizures possibly related to Ebola.” Depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder were common, said neurologist Jeanne Billioux, MD, a clinical fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md.
Almost two-thirds of the patients had abnormal neurologic exams. The most common findings were tremors, pathological reflexes, mild dysmetria, and abnormalities of eye pursuits and saccades, plus nystagmus. The findings were statistically significant, compared with 81 close contacts, generally household members, who served as controls in the ongoing natural history study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
What’s become clear in the wake of the recent outbreak in West Africa, by far the worst to date with over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths, is that there is a post-Ebola syndrome that includes ophthalmologic, cardiac, and rheumatologic problems. It now appears that “neurologic sequelae are a part of it,” as well, she said.
The natural history study – dubbed the Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia (PREVAIL III) – is a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Health of Liberia, one of the hardest-hit countries; the neurology investigation is just one component of the study, which includes about 1,500 patients overall.
Serology testing confirmed that cases truly did have Ebola, and the controls did not. After the first evaluation a year or so after the acute illness, patients have been followed up every 6 months, with some out to about 3 years.
Although patients aren’t back to normal, the good news is that their symptoms and exams are improving. “We started with only 6 who had no symptoms; now we have 15. Headaches are getting better; memory is getting better. It’s wonderful,” Dr. Billioux said.
The patients were asked to recall their acute symptoms during their first study visit. Many reported headaches, weakness, altered mental status, and cranial nerve symptoms. About 2% described convulsions or strokelike symptoms, and about 25% described symptoms consistent with meningitis.
It’s unclear how the virus affected the CNS, which isn’t considered to be a target organ. Perhaps fluid loss from severe diarrhea led to cerebral hypoperfusion. The cytokine storm during the acute phase might also have played a role. The virus has, however, been isolated from cerebral spinal fluid and, although uncommon, there are the reports of meningitis symptoms, so perhaps it does have direct CNS effects. Much remains to be learned.
Both cases and controls were a mean of about 35 years old, and evenly split between the sexes; 108 patients (70.6%) spent more than 2 weeks in an Ebola treatment unit.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Billioux had no disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – Add neurologic issues to the growing list of medical problems faced by survivors of Ebola virus.
Among 153 Liberian patients about a year out from their acute illness, “there were only a handful who didn’t have” some lingering neurologic problem. “The most commonly reported ongoing symptoms were headache and memory loss. A couple of people had seizures possibly related to Ebola.” Depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder were common, said neurologist Jeanne Billioux, MD, a clinical fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md.
Almost two-thirds of the patients had abnormal neurologic exams. The most common findings were tremors, pathological reflexes, mild dysmetria, and abnormalities of eye pursuits and saccades, plus nystagmus. The findings were statistically significant, compared with 81 close contacts, generally household members, who served as controls in the ongoing natural history study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
What’s become clear in the wake of the recent outbreak in West Africa, by far the worst to date with over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths, is that there is a post-Ebola syndrome that includes ophthalmologic, cardiac, and rheumatologic problems. It now appears that “neurologic sequelae are a part of it,” as well, she said.
The natural history study – dubbed the Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia (PREVAIL III) – is a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Health of Liberia, one of the hardest-hit countries; the neurology investigation is just one component of the study, which includes about 1,500 patients overall.
Serology testing confirmed that cases truly did have Ebola, and the controls did not. After the first evaluation a year or so after the acute illness, patients have been followed up every 6 months, with some out to about 3 years.
Although patients aren’t back to normal, the good news is that their symptoms and exams are improving. “We started with only 6 who had no symptoms; now we have 15. Headaches are getting better; memory is getting better. It’s wonderful,” Dr. Billioux said.
The patients were asked to recall their acute symptoms during their first study visit. Many reported headaches, weakness, altered mental status, and cranial nerve symptoms. About 2% described convulsions or strokelike symptoms, and about 25% described symptoms consistent with meningitis.
It’s unclear how the virus affected the CNS, which isn’t considered to be a target organ. Perhaps fluid loss from severe diarrhea led to cerebral hypoperfusion. The cytokine storm during the acute phase might also have played a role. The virus has, however, been isolated from cerebral spinal fluid and, although uncommon, there are the reports of meningitis symptoms, so perhaps it does have direct CNS effects. Much remains to be learned.
Both cases and controls were a mean of about 35 years old, and evenly split between the sexes; 108 patients (70.6%) spent more than 2 weeks in an Ebola treatment unit.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Billioux had no disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – Add neurologic issues to the growing list of medical problems faced by survivors of Ebola virus.
Among 153 Liberian patients about a year out from their acute illness, “there were only a handful who didn’t have” some lingering neurologic problem. “The most commonly reported ongoing symptoms were headache and memory loss. A couple of people had seizures possibly related to Ebola.” Depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder were common, said neurologist Jeanne Billioux, MD, a clinical fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md.
Almost two-thirds of the patients had abnormal neurologic exams. The most common findings were tremors, pathological reflexes, mild dysmetria, and abnormalities of eye pursuits and saccades, plus nystagmus. The findings were statistically significant, compared with 81 close contacts, generally household members, who served as controls in the ongoing natural history study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
What’s become clear in the wake of the recent outbreak in West Africa, by far the worst to date with over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths, is that there is a post-Ebola syndrome that includes ophthalmologic, cardiac, and rheumatologic problems. It now appears that “neurologic sequelae are a part of it,” as well, she said.
The natural history study – dubbed the Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia (PREVAIL III) – is a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Health of Liberia, one of the hardest-hit countries; the neurology investigation is just one component of the study, which includes about 1,500 patients overall.
Serology testing confirmed that cases truly did have Ebola, and the controls did not. After the first evaluation a year or so after the acute illness, patients have been followed up every 6 months, with some out to about 3 years.
Although patients aren’t back to normal, the good news is that their symptoms and exams are improving. “We started with only 6 who had no symptoms; now we have 15. Headaches are getting better; memory is getting better. It’s wonderful,” Dr. Billioux said.
The patients were asked to recall their acute symptoms during their first study visit. Many reported headaches, weakness, altered mental status, and cranial nerve symptoms. About 2% described convulsions or strokelike symptoms, and about 25% described symptoms consistent with meningitis.
It’s unclear how the virus affected the CNS, which isn’t considered to be a target organ. Perhaps fluid loss from severe diarrhea led to cerebral hypoperfusion. The cytokine storm during the acute phase might also have played a role. The virus has, however, been isolated from cerebral spinal fluid and, although uncommon, there are the reports of meningitis symptoms, so perhaps it does have direct CNS effects. Much remains to be learned.
Both cases and controls were a mean of about 35 years old, and evenly split between the sexes; 108 patients (70.6%) spent more than 2 weeks in an Ebola treatment unit.
The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Billioux had no disclosures.
AT ANA 2017
Key clinical point:
Major finding: A year after their acute infection, almost two-thirds of Ebola survivors had abnormal neurologic exams.
Data source: Natural history study involving 153 patients
Disclosures: The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The lead investigator had no disclosures.
Higher stroke risk found for TAVR versus SAVR
SAN DIEGO – There was an 86% greater risk of ischemic stroke after transcatheter aortic valve replacement, compared with surgical aortic valve replacement, and a more than sixfold increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke, in a review of more than 44,000 patients in the Nationwide Readmissions Database who were followed out to a year after having one procedure or the other.
“Our data suggest an elevated risk of both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR [transcatheter aortic valve replacement]. I see a lot of people that have strokes after” TAVR, so “I wasn’t all that surprised that there is an increased risk, but could I have guessed it would have been so high? No.” Perhaps “we are offering it to people we shouldn’t be offering it to,” said lead investigator Laura Stein, MD, a vascular neurology fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
The 2013 Nationwide Readmissions Database used in the study captured more than 14 million readmissions in the United States across all payers and the uninsured. “We used this database because its captures all comers” and reflects “more real-world practice,” Dr. Stein said.
There were 6,015 TAVR and 38,624 SAVR cases in 2013, and the team found consistently elevated cumulative risks of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR, compared with SAVR, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
Compared with SAVR, the hazard ratio for ischemic stroke with TAVR was 1.86 (95% confidence interval, 1.12-3.08; P = .016) and, for hemorrhagic stroke, 6.17 (95% CI, 1.97-19.33; P = .0018). Dr. Stein declined to release absolute numbers of strokes in the two groups, pending publication.
“A lot of attention is being paid to this topic because there has been a push, a lot of it by the device makers, to prove that [TAVR] outcomes are just as good as with traditional surgery, and that we should be offering [TAVR] to more people with higher risk factor profiles who might not have been offered repair otherwise. Our job is to help patients make the most informed decisions. Having another source of data like [ours]” adds to the conversation about risks and benefits, she said.
The investigators adjusted for a large number of potential confounders to make sure the comparison was as fair as possible given the limits of database reviews. Among other variables, they controlled for baseline cardiovascular risk factors, carotid artery disease, heart failure, obesity, smoking, surgical complications, mortality, and illness severity scores, as well as hospital size, teaching hospital status, and urban versus rural location.
“What we can’t know is what medications these patients were on that might have increased their bleeding or ischemia risk. Also, we were relying on coding done by other people,” Dr. Stein said.
The next step is to look at the impact of stenting and other concomitant procedures. “We were surprised by the number of people that had multiple procedures at the same time.” The ultimate goal is to develop a risk score to help patients and doctors decide between the two procedures, she said.
Meanwhile, the team found no difference in stroke risk between coronary artery bypass grafting and percutaneous coronary interventions in the 2013 database.
Three was no industry funding for the work, and Dr. Stein did not have any relevant disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – There was an 86% greater risk of ischemic stroke after transcatheter aortic valve replacement, compared with surgical aortic valve replacement, and a more than sixfold increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke, in a review of more than 44,000 patients in the Nationwide Readmissions Database who were followed out to a year after having one procedure or the other.
“Our data suggest an elevated risk of both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR [transcatheter aortic valve replacement]. I see a lot of people that have strokes after” TAVR, so “I wasn’t all that surprised that there is an increased risk, but could I have guessed it would have been so high? No.” Perhaps “we are offering it to people we shouldn’t be offering it to,” said lead investigator Laura Stein, MD, a vascular neurology fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
The 2013 Nationwide Readmissions Database used in the study captured more than 14 million readmissions in the United States across all payers and the uninsured. “We used this database because its captures all comers” and reflects “more real-world practice,” Dr. Stein said.
There were 6,015 TAVR and 38,624 SAVR cases in 2013, and the team found consistently elevated cumulative risks of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR, compared with SAVR, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
Compared with SAVR, the hazard ratio for ischemic stroke with TAVR was 1.86 (95% confidence interval, 1.12-3.08; P = .016) and, for hemorrhagic stroke, 6.17 (95% CI, 1.97-19.33; P = .0018). Dr. Stein declined to release absolute numbers of strokes in the two groups, pending publication.
“A lot of attention is being paid to this topic because there has been a push, a lot of it by the device makers, to prove that [TAVR] outcomes are just as good as with traditional surgery, and that we should be offering [TAVR] to more people with higher risk factor profiles who might not have been offered repair otherwise. Our job is to help patients make the most informed decisions. Having another source of data like [ours]” adds to the conversation about risks and benefits, she said.
The investigators adjusted for a large number of potential confounders to make sure the comparison was as fair as possible given the limits of database reviews. Among other variables, they controlled for baseline cardiovascular risk factors, carotid artery disease, heart failure, obesity, smoking, surgical complications, mortality, and illness severity scores, as well as hospital size, teaching hospital status, and urban versus rural location.
“What we can’t know is what medications these patients were on that might have increased their bleeding or ischemia risk. Also, we were relying on coding done by other people,” Dr. Stein said.
The next step is to look at the impact of stenting and other concomitant procedures. “We were surprised by the number of people that had multiple procedures at the same time.” The ultimate goal is to develop a risk score to help patients and doctors decide between the two procedures, she said.
Meanwhile, the team found no difference in stroke risk between coronary artery bypass grafting and percutaneous coronary interventions in the 2013 database.
Three was no industry funding for the work, and Dr. Stein did not have any relevant disclosures.
SAN DIEGO – There was an 86% greater risk of ischemic stroke after transcatheter aortic valve replacement, compared with surgical aortic valve replacement, and a more than sixfold increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke, in a review of more than 44,000 patients in the Nationwide Readmissions Database who were followed out to a year after having one procedure or the other.
“Our data suggest an elevated risk of both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR [transcatheter aortic valve replacement]. I see a lot of people that have strokes after” TAVR, so “I wasn’t all that surprised that there is an increased risk, but could I have guessed it would have been so high? No.” Perhaps “we are offering it to people we shouldn’t be offering it to,” said lead investigator Laura Stein, MD, a vascular neurology fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
The 2013 Nationwide Readmissions Database used in the study captured more than 14 million readmissions in the United States across all payers and the uninsured. “We used this database because its captures all comers” and reflects “more real-world practice,” Dr. Stein said.
There were 6,015 TAVR and 38,624 SAVR cases in 2013, and the team found consistently elevated cumulative risks of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke after TAVR, compared with SAVR, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association.
Compared with SAVR, the hazard ratio for ischemic stroke with TAVR was 1.86 (95% confidence interval, 1.12-3.08; P = .016) and, for hemorrhagic stroke, 6.17 (95% CI, 1.97-19.33; P = .0018). Dr. Stein declined to release absolute numbers of strokes in the two groups, pending publication.
“A lot of attention is being paid to this topic because there has been a push, a lot of it by the device makers, to prove that [TAVR] outcomes are just as good as with traditional surgery, and that we should be offering [TAVR] to more people with higher risk factor profiles who might not have been offered repair otherwise. Our job is to help patients make the most informed decisions. Having another source of data like [ours]” adds to the conversation about risks and benefits, she said.
The investigators adjusted for a large number of potential confounders to make sure the comparison was as fair as possible given the limits of database reviews. Among other variables, they controlled for baseline cardiovascular risk factors, carotid artery disease, heart failure, obesity, smoking, surgical complications, mortality, and illness severity scores, as well as hospital size, teaching hospital status, and urban versus rural location.
“What we can’t know is what medications these patients were on that might have increased their bleeding or ischemia risk. Also, we were relying on coding done by other people,” Dr. Stein said.
The next step is to look at the impact of stenting and other concomitant procedures. “We were surprised by the number of people that had multiple procedures at the same time.” The ultimate goal is to develop a risk score to help patients and doctors decide between the two procedures, she said.
Meanwhile, the team found no difference in stroke risk between coronary artery bypass grafting and percutaneous coronary interventions in the 2013 database.
Three was no industry funding for the work, and Dr. Stein did not have any relevant disclosures.
AT ANA 2017
Key clinical point:
Major finding: There was an 86% greater risk of ischemic stroke after transcatheter aortic valve replacement, compared with surgical aortic valve replacement, and a more than sixfold increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke.
Data source: Database review of more than 44,000 patients
Disclosures: Three was no industry funding for the work, and the lead investigator did not have any relevant disclosures.
Plenary sessions at ANA 2017 cover wide spectrum of neurologic topics
The six plenary sessions of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association, taking place Oct. 15-17 in San Diego, promise to cover a broad range of research areas, including neuronal circuits and behavior, global neurology, precision medicine, antisense oligonucleotide therapies, and molecular imaging.
The morning of Oct. 15 starts off with the plenary session, “Linking Circuits to Behavior: Promise & Peril,” which seeks to impart how technologies such as optogenetics enable manipulation of discrete neural populations but require careful consideration of the methods for interpreting the resulting data in order to translate it to human functional neuroimaging for potential therapeutic use.
Later, in the afternoon of Oct. 15, the traditional Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Symposium will showcase the presentations from the two clinical science winners and one basic science winner of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Awards, as well as the 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award, the 2017 Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, and the 2017 Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize. The Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award recognizes neurologists and neuroscientists in the first 10 years of their career at the assistant/associate faculty (equivalent) level who have made outstanding basic and clinical scientific advances toward the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of neurologic diseases. This year, award winner Keven N. Sheth, MD, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., will present on “Instructive, Pragmatic, and Successful Trials in Acute Brain Injury: Making Intracerebral Hemorrhage the LEAST Devastating Form of Stroke”; Leslie E. Skolarus, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will present on “Reducing the Burden of Stroke in a Disadvantaged Community”; and Conrad Chris Weihl, MD, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis will present on “Connecting Protein Quality Control Pathways in Skeletal Muscle and Muscle Disease.” The 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award goes to Zachary Nathaniel London, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The winner of this year’s Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, which goes to an outstanding young physician-scientist conducting research in basic or clinical neuroscience, is Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, who will discuss “Modeling C9ORF72 Disease: A Crucial Step for Therapeutic Development in ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia.” The symposium’s final presentation will have Stefanie Geisler, MD, of Washington University in St. Louis, talk about “Targeting a Core Axonal Degeneration Program to Treat Vincristine and Bortezomib-Induced Axonal Degeneration.” Dr. Geisler won the Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize, which honors outstanding investigators who identify a new cause or treatment of axonal peripheral neuropathy.
The morning plenary session on Oct. 16 will focus on translational neuroscience efforts that are paying off with discoveries and insights into neurologic disorders that have higher prevalence or greater relevance to low- and middle-income countries. Presentations on these efforts will include discussion of the causation and prevention of Konzo, a distinct upper–motor neuron disease associated with cassava cyanogenic poisoning in sub-Saharan Africa; a case-control study on the impact of multiple mycotoxins on the development of Nodding syndrome in northern Uganda; efforts to address neurologic manifestations of sexually transmitted virus infections in Peru; a longitudinal cohort study of neurologic sequelae in Ebola virus disease survivors in Liberia; efforts to protect against cerebral malaria; the epidemiology of peripheral neuropathy in urban and rural Bangladeshi type 2 diabetes patients; and the use of smartphones and teleconsultations to improve care for people with epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries.
“Precision Medicine in Neurologic Disease” is the theme of four presentations in the afternoon plenary session on Oct. 16. Huda Y. Zoghbi, MD, of Baylor University, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston will talk about how her work in animal models of disease has enabled new insights into the effect that certain regulator proteins have on levels of disease-driving proteins such as tau and alpha-synuclein in neurodegenerative diseases. Amy Wagers, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will describe her lab’s use of the gene-editing potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 system to fix frame-disrupting mutations in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene, DMD, which encodes dystrophin, and produce functional dystrophin expression in muscle stem cells in a mouse model of the disease, which partially recovered functional deficiencies of dystrophic muscle. Donald Berry, PhD, of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston plans to discuss the importance of adaptive platform trials – which match therapies to patients – from oncology to neurologic therapy trials and the lessons learned from two major ongoing oncology treatment trials. Cristina Sampaio, MD, PhD, of the CHDI Foundation, aims to inform attendees of the power of prognostic and predictive biomarker-guided trials in neurology to improve the likelihood of success of drug development. Three high-scoring abstracts in the field of precision medicine also will be presented.
The final day of the meeting brings a morning plenary session on “Antisense Oligonucleotide Treatment of Genetic Neurological Diseases” that will focus on the use of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to silence specific genes or alter their pre-mRNA splicing in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and tauopathies. Additional presentations will focus on abstracts about blood and salivary biomarkers in Huntington’s disease and the early efficacy and safety results of an ASO in patients with hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis with polyneuropathy.
The expanding use and development of methods to assess brain pathology in vivo sets the scene for the meeting’s final plenary session, “Molecular Imaging in Neurologic Disease” in the afternoon of Oct. 17. The use of positron emission tomography and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) tracers for glucose metabolism, the dopamine system, amyloid-beta, tau, synaptic markers, and activated microglia has grown substantially to investigate disease mechanisms, develop new therapeutics, and provide diagnostic and prognostic clinical care. Reisa Sperling, MD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will provide an overview of the direction of PET ligand use and development in diagnosing early Alzheimer’s disease. Nicolaas I. Bohnen, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will describe a hypothesis for how hypercholinergic activity in the brain of Parkinson’s disease patients may for a time compensate for the loss of striatal dopamine and influence the appearance of a tremor-predominant motor phenotype in patients. Richard E. Carson, PhD, of Yale University will focus on the development of PET ligands to monitor synaptic density loss in neuropsychiatric disorders. Noninvasive imaging has also begun to influence research in the detection of neuroinflammation in a wide variety of conditions, with most research focusing on tracers for activated microglia and astrocytes, according to speaker Martin Pomper, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The session will conclude with three molecular imaging abstract presentations.
The six plenary sessions of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association, taking place Oct. 15-17 in San Diego, promise to cover a broad range of research areas, including neuronal circuits and behavior, global neurology, precision medicine, antisense oligonucleotide therapies, and molecular imaging.
The morning of Oct. 15 starts off with the plenary session, “Linking Circuits to Behavior: Promise & Peril,” which seeks to impart how technologies such as optogenetics enable manipulation of discrete neural populations but require careful consideration of the methods for interpreting the resulting data in order to translate it to human functional neuroimaging for potential therapeutic use.
Later, in the afternoon of Oct. 15, the traditional Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Symposium will showcase the presentations from the two clinical science winners and one basic science winner of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Awards, as well as the 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award, the 2017 Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, and the 2017 Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize. The Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award recognizes neurologists and neuroscientists in the first 10 years of their career at the assistant/associate faculty (equivalent) level who have made outstanding basic and clinical scientific advances toward the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of neurologic diseases. This year, award winner Keven N. Sheth, MD, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., will present on “Instructive, Pragmatic, and Successful Trials in Acute Brain Injury: Making Intracerebral Hemorrhage the LEAST Devastating Form of Stroke”; Leslie E. Skolarus, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will present on “Reducing the Burden of Stroke in a Disadvantaged Community”; and Conrad Chris Weihl, MD, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis will present on “Connecting Protein Quality Control Pathways in Skeletal Muscle and Muscle Disease.” The 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award goes to Zachary Nathaniel London, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The winner of this year’s Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, which goes to an outstanding young physician-scientist conducting research in basic or clinical neuroscience, is Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, who will discuss “Modeling C9ORF72 Disease: A Crucial Step for Therapeutic Development in ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia.” The symposium’s final presentation will have Stefanie Geisler, MD, of Washington University in St. Louis, talk about “Targeting a Core Axonal Degeneration Program to Treat Vincristine and Bortezomib-Induced Axonal Degeneration.” Dr. Geisler won the Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize, which honors outstanding investigators who identify a new cause or treatment of axonal peripheral neuropathy.
The morning plenary session on Oct. 16 will focus on translational neuroscience efforts that are paying off with discoveries and insights into neurologic disorders that have higher prevalence or greater relevance to low- and middle-income countries. Presentations on these efforts will include discussion of the causation and prevention of Konzo, a distinct upper–motor neuron disease associated with cassava cyanogenic poisoning in sub-Saharan Africa; a case-control study on the impact of multiple mycotoxins on the development of Nodding syndrome in northern Uganda; efforts to address neurologic manifestations of sexually transmitted virus infections in Peru; a longitudinal cohort study of neurologic sequelae in Ebola virus disease survivors in Liberia; efforts to protect against cerebral malaria; the epidemiology of peripheral neuropathy in urban and rural Bangladeshi type 2 diabetes patients; and the use of smartphones and teleconsultations to improve care for people with epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries.
“Precision Medicine in Neurologic Disease” is the theme of four presentations in the afternoon plenary session on Oct. 16. Huda Y. Zoghbi, MD, of Baylor University, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston will talk about how her work in animal models of disease has enabled new insights into the effect that certain regulator proteins have on levels of disease-driving proteins such as tau and alpha-synuclein in neurodegenerative diseases. Amy Wagers, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will describe her lab’s use of the gene-editing potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 system to fix frame-disrupting mutations in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene, DMD, which encodes dystrophin, and produce functional dystrophin expression in muscle stem cells in a mouse model of the disease, which partially recovered functional deficiencies of dystrophic muscle. Donald Berry, PhD, of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston plans to discuss the importance of adaptive platform trials – which match therapies to patients – from oncology to neurologic therapy trials and the lessons learned from two major ongoing oncology treatment trials. Cristina Sampaio, MD, PhD, of the CHDI Foundation, aims to inform attendees of the power of prognostic and predictive biomarker-guided trials in neurology to improve the likelihood of success of drug development. Three high-scoring abstracts in the field of precision medicine also will be presented.
The final day of the meeting brings a morning plenary session on “Antisense Oligonucleotide Treatment of Genetic Neurological Diseases” that will focus on the use of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to silence specific genes or alter their pre-mRNA splicing in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and tauopathies. Additional presentations will focus on abstracts about blood and salivary biomarkers in Huntington’s disease and the early efficacy and safety results of an ASO in patients with hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis with polyneuropathy.
The expanding use and development of methods to assess brain pathology in vivo sets the scene for the meeting’s final plenary session, “Molecular Imaging in Neurologic Disease” in the afternoon of Oct. 17. The use of positron emission tomography and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) tracers for glucose metabolism, the dopamine system, amyloid-beta, tau, synaptic markers, and activated microglia has grown substantially to investigate disease mechanisms, develop new therapeutics, and provide diagnostic and prognostic clinical care. Reisa Sperling, MD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will provide an overview of the direction of PET ligand use and development in diagnosing early Alzheimer’s disease. Nicolaas I. Bohnen, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will describe a hypothesis for how hypercholinergic activity in the brain of Parkinson’s disease patients may for a time compensate for the loss of striatal dopamine and influence the appearance of a tremor-predominant motor phenotype in patients. Richard E. Carson, PhD, of Yale University will focus on the development of PET ligands to monitor synaptic density loss in neuropsychiatric disorders. Noninvasive imaging has also begun to influence research in the detection of neuroinflammation in a wide variety of conditions, with most research focusing on tracers for activated microglia and astrocytes, according to speaker Martin Pomper, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The session will conclude with three molecular imaging abstract presentations.
The six plenary sessions of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association, taking place Oct. 15-17 in San Diego, promise to cover a broad range of research areas, including neuronal circuits and behavior, global neurology, precision medicine, antisense oligonucleotide therapies, and molecular imaging.
The morning of Oct. 15 starts off with the plenary session, “Linking Circuits to Behavior: Promise & Peril,” which seeks to impart how technologies such as optogenetics enable manipulation of discrete neural populations but require careful consideration of the methods for interpreting the resulting data in order to translate it to human functional neuroimaging for potential therapeutic use.
Later, in the afternoon of Oct. 15, the traditional Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Symposium will showcase the presentations from the two clinical science winners and one basic science winner of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Awards, as well as the 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award, the 2017 Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, and the 2017 Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize. The Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award recognizes neurologists and neuroscientists in the first 10 years of their career at the assistant/associate faculty (equivalent) level who have made outstanding basic and clinical scientific advances toward the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of neurologic diseases. This year, award winner Keven N. Sheth, MD, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., will present on “Instructive, Pragmatic, and Successful Trials in Acute Brain Injury: Making Intracerebral Hemorrhage the LEAST Devastating Form of Stroke”; Leslie E. Skolarus, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will present on “Reducing the Burden of Stroke in a Disadvantaged Community”; and Conrad Chris Weihl, MD, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis will present on “Connecting Protein Quality Control Pathways in Skeletal Muscle and Muscle Disease.” The 2017 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award goes to Zachary Nathaniel London, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The winner of this year’s Grass Foundation ANA Award in Neuroscience, which goes to an outstanding young physician-scientist conducting research in basic or clinical neuroscience, is Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, who will discuss “Modeling C9ORF72 Disease: A Crucial Step for Therapeutic Development in ALS and Frontotemporal Dementia.” The symposium’s final presentation will have Stefanie Geisler, MD, of Washington University in St. Louis, talk about “Targeting a Core Axonal Degeneration Program to Treat Vincristine and Bortezomib-Induced Axonal Degeneration.” Dr. Geisler won the Wolfe Neuropathy Research Prize, which honors outstanding investigators who identify a new cause or treatment of axonal peripheral neuropathy.
The morning plenary session on Oct. 16 will focus on translational neuroscience efforts that are paying off with discoveries and insights into neurologic disorders that have higher prevalence or greater relevance to low- and middle-income countries. Presentations on these efforts will include discussion of the causation and prevention of Konzo, a distinct upper–motor neuron disease associated with cassava cyanogenic poisoning in sub-Saharan Africa; a case-control study on the impact of multiple mycotoxins on the development of Nodding syndrome in northern Uganda; efforts to address neurologic manifestations of sexually transmitted virus infections in Peru; a longitudinal cohort study of neurologic sequelae in Ebola virus disease survivors in Liberia; efforts to protect against cerebral malaria; the epidemiology of peripheral neuropathy in urban and rural Bangladeshi type 2 diabetes patients; and the use of smartphones and teleconsultations to improve care for people with epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries.
“Precision Medicine in Neurologic Disease” is the theme of four presentations in the afternoon plenary session on Oct. 16. Huda Y. Zoghbi, MD, of Baylor University, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston will talk about how her work in animal models of disease has enabled new insights into the effect that certain regulator proteins have on levels of disease-driving proteins such as tau and alpha-synuclein in neurodegenerative diseases. Amy Wagers, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will describe her lab’s use of the gene-editing potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 system to fix frame-disrupting mutations in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene, DMD, which encodes dystrophin, and produce functional dystrophin expression in muscle stem cells in a mouse model of the disease, which partially recovered functional deficiencies of dystrophic muscle. Donald Berry, PhD, of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston plans to discuss the importance of adaptive platform trials – which match therapies to patients – from oncology to neurologic therapy trials and the lessons learned from two major ongoing oncology treatment trials. Cristina Sampaio, MD, PhD, of the CHDI Foundation, aims to inform attendees of the power of prognostic and predictive biomarker-guided trials in neurology to improve the likelihood of success of drug development. Three high-scoring abstracts in the field of precision medicine also will be presented.
The final day of the meeting brings a morning plenary session on “Antisense Oligonucleotide Treatment of Genetic Neurological Diseases” that will focus on the use of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to silence specific genes or alter their pre-mRNA splicing in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and tauopathies. Additional presentations will focus on abstracts about blood and salivary biomarkers in Huntington’s disease and the early efficacy and safety results of an ASO in patients with hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis with polyneuropathy.
The expanding use and development of methods to assess brain pathology in vivo sets the scene for the meeting’s final plenary session, “Molecular Imaging in Neurologic Disease” in the afternoon of Oct. 17. The use of positron emission tomography and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) tracers for glucose metabolism, the dopamine system, amyloid-beta, tau, synaptic markers, and activated microglia has grown substantially to investigate disease mechanisms, develop new therapeutics, and provide diagnostic and prognostic clinical care. Reisa Sperling, MD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, will provide an overview of the direction of PET ligand use and development in diagnosing early Alzheimer’s disease. Nicolaas I. Bohnen, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will describe a hypothesis for how hypercholinergic activity in the brain of Parkinson’s disease patients may for a time compensate for the loss of striatal dopamine and influence the appearance of a tremor-predominant motor phenotype in patients. Richard E. Carson, PhD, of Yale University will focus on the development of PET ligands to monitor synaptic density loss in neuropsychiatric disorders. Noninvasive imaging has also begun to influence research in the detection of neuroinflammation in a wide variety of conditions, with most research focusing on tracers for activated microglia and astrocytes, according to speaker Martin Pomper, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The session will conclude with three molecular imaging abstract presentations.
BRAIN Initiative update to whet appetite for main ANA meeting
Before the main American Neurological Association annual meeting begins in San Diego, plan on attending a special premeeting symposium, “Big Science and the BRAIN Initiative,” on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 14, to learn what a panel of experts has to say about the project, which is now entering its 4th year.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at supporting the development of an arsenal of new tools, multiscale maps, and new knowledge of neural circuits in both health and disease.
Walter Koroshetz, MD, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md., will chair the symposium and describe the structure of the initiative and its seven high-level research priorities.
Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, will describe his research groups’ efforts at using single-cell approaches to establish an integrative definition of cell types in the developing human neocortex.
Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, plans to provide insight on how her lab has developed safe, efficient, and specific vectors for targeting specific cells in the brain to learn about the circuits underlying locomotion, reward, and sleep, and to report on their activity history.
Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, aims to survey the history and current landscape of available approaches toward obtaining single-neuron level information from patients, and to describe how this level of precision complements both meso- and macroscale information. He will describe how the huge amount of information being generated from these approaches is being examined with “big data” analytics.
Anna Devor, PhD, of the University of California, San Diego, intends to illustrate a “bottom-up” forward model for how to bridge the mechanistic insights we have gleaned from animal models and match them to noninvasive human neuroimaging data from functional MRI, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, magneto/electroencephalography, and positron emission tomography. This would involve identifying the noninvasive imaging signatures of specific neuronal cell types in order to derive better tools and techniques for estimating neuronal activity from multimodal noninvasive imaging data.
Before the main American Neurological Association annual meeting begins in San Diego, plan on attending a special premeeting symposium, “Big Science and the BRAIN Initiative,” on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 14, to learn what a panel of experts has to say about the project, which is now entering its 4th year.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at supporting the development of an arsenal of new tools, multiscale maps, and new knowledge of neural circuits in both health and disease.
Walter Koroshetz, MD, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md., will chair the symposium and describe the structure of the initiative and its seven high-level research priorities.
Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, will describe his research groups’ efforts at using single-cell approaches to establish an integrative definition of cell types in the developing human neocortex.
Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, plans to provide insight on how her lab has developed safe, efficient, and specific vectors for targeting specific cells in the brain to learn about the circuits underlying locomotion, reward, and sleep, and to report on their activity history.
Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, aims to survey the history and current landscape of available approaches toward obtaining single-neuron level information from patients, and to describe how this level of precision complements both meso- and macroscale information. He will describe how the huge amount of information being generated from these approaches is being examined with “big data” analytics.
Anna Devor, PhD, of the University of California, San Diego, intends to illustrate a “bottom-up” forward model for how to bridge the mechanistic insights we have gleaned from animal models and match them to noninvasive human neuroimaging data from functional MRI, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, magneto/electroencephalography, and positron emission tomography. This would involve identifying the noninvasive imaging signatures of specific neuronal cell types in order to derive better tools and techniques for estimating neuronal activity from multimodal noninvasive imaging data.
Before the main American Neurological Association annual meeting begins in San Diego, plan on attending a special premeeting symposium, “Big Science and the BRAIN Initiative,” on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 14, to learn what a panel of experts has to say about the project, which is now entering its 4th year.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at supporting the development of an arsenal of new tools, multiscale maps, and new knowledge of neural circuits in both health and disease.
Walter Koroshetz, MD, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md., will chair the symposium and describe the structure of the initiative and its seven high-level research priorities.
Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, will describe his research groups’ efforts at using single-cell approaches to establish an integrative definition of cell types in the developing human neocortex.
Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, plans to provide insight on how her lab has developed safe, efficient, and specific vectors for targeting specific cells in the brain to learn about the circuits underlying locomotion, reward, and sleep, and to report on their activity history.
Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, aims to survey the history and current landscape of available approaches toward obtaining single-neuron level information from patients, and to describe how this level of precision complements both meso- and macroscale information. He will describe how the huge amount of information being generated from these approaches is being examined with “big data” analytics.
Anna Devor, PhD, of the University of California, San Diego, intends to illustrate a “bottom-up” forward model for how to bridge the mechanistic insights we have gleaned from animal models and match them to noninvasive human neuroimaging data from functional MRI, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, magneto/electroencephalography, and positron emission tomography. This would involve identifying the noninvasive imaging signatures of specific neuronal cell types in order to derive better tools and techniques for estimating neuronal activity from multimodal noninvasive imaging data.
ANA 2017 offers career development sessions at all levels
Professional developments courses that will take place each morning during the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in San Diego offer special opportunities to learn about the rewards and challenges of different career options for neurologists and researchers in academic neurology from those who have gone down a variety of careers paths themselves. Three courses each morning are geared specifically for students, residents, post-docs, and fellows, as well as for professionals at early-, mid-, and university-chair career levels.
For students, residents, post-docs, and fellows
On Oct. 15, young neurology scholars will begin the course with a discussion on the transition from neurology resident to fellow, and then career pathways as a basic scientist, a clinical scientist/researcher, and clinician-administrator. Last year’s recipients of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award also will provide insights on successful early careers in academic neurology.
Global Health has many opportunities for individuals who are looking at potential career paths in neurology to conduct research, clinical care, or educate others in low- to middle-income countries. Speakers on Oct. 16 will share their experiences and discuss emerging trends in global health in neurology and ways in which individuals might pursue careers or opportunities that complement pursuits in academic neurology.
A workshop on Oct. 17 will focus on the essential skills needed for a successful job-seeking experience in academic neurology. There will be opportunities to practice interviewing and negotiating skills, as well as to learn how to market your research and abilities when the opportunity strikes and time is limited.
For early- to mid-career levels
Finding a niche and a successful career trajectory takes a good deal of planning and taking opportunities when the time is right. On Oct. 15, several mid-career level academic neurologists will share their career trajectories and alternative methods they have used for obtaining support and funding for their clinical research, educational enterprises, and curricular development.
The Oct. 16 career development course will outline methods for setting milestones for career development and finding the resources and mentoring individuals you will need for career advancement.
To learn skills and discover tools that will help to write successful grant proposals, particularly for the National Institutes of Health, come to the session on Oct. 17. You can learn how to develop your grant application, respond to critiques of your application, and hear about a variety of sources of funding.
For university chairs of neurology
At a time in which funding for salaries is hampered by many factors, salary disparities are changing across subspecialties as well as in different faculty positions, with some disparities widening and others shrinking. Come to the career development course on Oct. 15 to learn about novel revenue sources and ways in which you can best subsidize the salaries of faculties in your department as well as offer nonmonetary compensation.
Given the current uncertainties of the fates of Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other major systems supporting health care, it is important to know the best approach to take in advocating for academic neurology and your department’s needs. At the course on Oct. 16, come learn about current health policy issues and the political climate and determine how and when to be politically active.
To understand the impact that the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) requirements will have on academic neurology, come to the session on Oct. 17. You’ll learn how population health measures and value-based care can be brought into an academic neurology practice, how to report on quality measures in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and how to participate in Advanced Alternative Payment Models.
Professional developments courses that will take place each morning during the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in San Diego offer special opportunities to learn about the rewards and challenges of different career options for neurologists and researchers in academic neurology from those who have gone down a variety of careers paths themselves. Three courses each morning are geared specifically for students, residents, post-docs, and fellows, as well as for professionals at early-, mid-, and university-chair career levels.
For students, residents, post-docs, and fellows
On Oct. 15, young neurology scholars will begin the course with a discussion on the transition from neurology resident to fellow, and then career pathways as a basic scientist, a clinical scientist/researcher, and clinician-administrator. Last year’s recipients of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award also will provide insights on successful early careers in academic neurology.
Global Health has many opportunities for individuals who are looking at potential career paths in neurology to conduct research, clinical care, or educate others in low- to middle-income countries. Speakers on Oct. 16 will share their experiences and discuss emerging trends in global health in neurology and ways in which individuals might pursue careers or opportunities that complement pursuits in academic neurology.
A workshop on Oct. 17 will focus on the essential skills needed for a successful job-seeking experience in academic neurology. There will be opportunities to practice interviewing and negotiating skills, as well as to learn how to market your research and abilities when the opportunity strikes and time is limited.
For early- to mid-career levels
Finding a niche and a successful career trajectory takes a good deal of planning and taking opportunities when the time is right. On Oct. 15, several mid-career level academic neurologists will share their career trajectories and alternative methods they have used for obtaining support and funding for their clinical research, educational enterprises, and curricular development.
The Oct. 16 career development course will outline methods for setting milestones for career development and finding the resources and mentoring individuals you will need for career advancement.
To learn skills and discover tools that will help to write successful grant proposals, particularly for the National Institutes of Health, come to the session on Oct. 17. You can learn how to develop your grant application, respond to critiques of your application, and hear about a variety of sources of funding.
For university chairs of neurology
At a time in which funding for salaries is hampered by many factors, salary disparities are changing across subspecialties as well as in different faculty positions, with some disparities widening and others shrinking. Come to the career development course on Oct. 15 to learn about novel revenue sources and ways in which you can best subsidize the salaries of faculties in your department as well as offer nonmonetary compensation.
Given the current uncertainties of the fates of Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other major systems supporting health care, it is important to know the best approach to take in advocating for academic neurology and your department’s needs. At the course on Oct. 16, come learn about current health policy issues and the political climate and determine how and when to be politically active.
To understand the impact that the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) requirements will have on academic neurology, come to the session on Oct. 17. You’ll learn how population health measures and value-based care can be brought into an academic neurology practice, how to report on quality measures in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and how to participate in Advanced Alternative Payment Models.
Professional developments courses that will take place each morning during the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in San Diego offer special opportunities to learn about the rewards and challenges of different career options for neurologists and researchers in academic neurology from those who have gone down a variety of careers paths themselves. Three courses each morning are geared specifically for students, residents, post-docs, and fellows, as well as for professionals at early-, mid-, and university-chair career levels.
For students, residents, post-docs, and fellows
On Oct. 15, young neurology scholars will begin the course with a discussion on the transition from neurology resident to fellow, and then career pathways as a basic scientist, a clinical scientist/researcher, and clinician-administrator. Last year’s recipients of the Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award also will provide insights on successful early careers in academic neurology.
Global Health has many opportunities for individuals who are looking at potential career paths in neurology to conduct research, clinical care, or educate others in low- to middle-income countries. Speakers on Oct. 16 will share their experiences and discuss emerging trends in global health in neurology and ways in which individuals might pursue careers or opportunities that complement pursuits in academic neurology.
A workshop on Oct. 17 will focus on the essential skills needed for a successful job-seeking experience in academic neurology. There will be opportunities to practice interviewing and negotiating skills, as well as to learn how to market your research and abilities when the opportunity strikes and time is limited.
For early- to mid-career levels
Finding a niche and a successful career trajectory takes a good deal of planning and taking opportunities when the time is right. On Oct. 15, several mid-career level academic neurologists will share their career trajectories and alternative methods they have used for obtaining support and funding for their clinical research, educational enterprises, and curricular development.
The Oct. 16 career development course will outline methods for setting milestones for career development and finding the resources and mentoring individuals you will need for career advancement.
To learn skills and discover tools that will help to write successful grant proposals, particularly for the National Institutes of Health, come to the session on Oct. 17. You can learn how to develop your grant application, respond to critiques of your application, and hear about a variety of sources of funding.
For university chairs of neurology
At a time in which funding for salaries is hampered by many factors, salary disparities are changing across subspecialties as well as in different faculty positions, with some disparities widening and others shrinking. Come to the career development course on Oct. 15 to learn about novel revenue sources and ways in which you can best subsidize the salaries of faculties in your department as well as offer nonmonetary compensation.
Given the current uncertainties of the fates of Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other major systems supporting health care, it is important to know the best approach to take in advocating for academic neurology and your department’s needs. At the course on Oct. 16, come learn about current health policy issues and the political climate and determine how and when to be politically active.
To understand the impact that the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) requirements will have on academic neurology, come to the session on Oct. 17. You’ll learn how population health measures and value-based care can be brought into an academic neurology practice, how to report on quality measures in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and how to participate in Advanced Alternative Payment Models.
Coming soon!
Look for our onsite coverage of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA), Oct. 15-17.
Look for our onsite coverage of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA), Oct. 15-17.
Look for our onsite coverage of the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association (ANA), Oct. 15-17.