Grand Rounds

We are honored to welcome guest speakers from around the country and the world to share their expertise in neurological subspecialties. Residents, trainees and faculty listen to weekly educational sessions with guest speakers who are leaders in their subspecialty, from academic medical centers around the country.

Our 2021-22 guest speakers (updated as speakers are scheduled, in chronological order):

• Dr. Daniel Tward, PhD, UCLA: "Computational Techniques to Study Neurodegeneration in early Alzheimer's Disease"
• Dr. Mary Teena Joy, PhD, UCLA: "Molecular Encoders of Memory as Therapeutic Targets for Motor Recovery"
• Dr. Keith Vossel, MD, UCLA: "The Latest Advances in Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research"
• Dr. Jiannis Taxidis, UCLA: "Remembering What Happened When: Dynamics of Hippocampal Sequences Linking Memories Across Time "
• Dr. Indu Subramanian, MD, UCLA: "The Power of Social Connection in Neurodegenerative Disease"
• Dr. Christopher Degiorgio, MD, UCLA: "New Secular Trends in Epilepsy Mortality and Causes of Death"
• Dr. Daniel Geschwind, MD, PhD, UCLA: "Achieving Precision Health in Medicine and Neuropsychiatry"
• Dr. John Ravits, MD, UCSD: "Emerging Targeted Gene Therapies in ALS and New Paradigms for Treating Neurodegenerative Disorders "
• Dr. Mitchell Miglis, Stanford: "Autonomic Disorders in Neurodegenerative Disease"
• Dr. Anthony Lang, MD, FRCPC, University of Toronto: "Clinical Trials Targeting Alpha-Synuclein in Parkinson's Disease"
• Dr. Vikram Rao, MD, UCSF: "Cloudy with a Chance of Seizures: Personalized Forecasting in Epilepsy"
• Dr. Sonja Scholz, MD, PhD, NIH/Hopkins: "The genetic architecture of Lewy body dementia: from gene discovery to clinical translation"
• Dr. Helen Bronte Stewart, MD, MS, Stanford: "Closed Loop or Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease"
• Dr. Eva Feldman, MD, PhD, University of Michigan: "Opportunities and Challenges in the Treatment of ALS"
• Dr. Sean Pittock, MD, Mayo Clinic: "NMOSD: A Two Decade Journey of Discovery From Biomarker to FDA Approved Drugs"
• Dr. Benjamin Segal, MD, OSU: "Immune Driven Neurorepair"
• Dr. Anne Cross, MD, Washington University: "B Lymphocytes and MS in the Era of COVID-19"
• Dr. Unsong Oh, MD, PhD, VCU: "Multiple Sclerosis"
• Dr. Laurie Gutmann, MD, Indiana University: "Neurology Education: Future Directions"
• Dr. Eugene Yeo, PhD, MBA, UCSD: "RNA Binding Proteins as Regulators, Drugs and Drug Targets"
• Dr. Stephen Hauser, MD, UCSF: "Progressive MS: The Next Frontier"
• Dr. Frances Jensen, MD, University of Pennsylvania: "Reimagining and Rescoping Academic Neurology"
• Drs. S. Thomas Carmichael, MD, PhD, and Paul Vespa, MD, UCLA: "ABPN Brain Death Training"
• Dr. Michael Sperling, MD, Thomas Jefferson University: "Advanced treatment for epilepsy: Thermal ablation, neuromodulation, and focused ultrasound
• Dr. Jeff Noebels, MD, PhD, Baylor: "Exploring the Genetic and Excitability Borderland of Glioblastoma and Epilepsy"
• Dr. Scott Baraban, PhD, UCSF: "Epilepsy & Drug Discovery in Zebrafish"
• Dr. Allison Willis, MD, University of Pennsylvania
• Dr. Altaf Saadi, MD, MSc, Massachusetts General: "Supporting Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum-Seekers: A Role for Neurology, Research and Advocacy"
• Dr. Mirella Diaz-Santos, PhD, UCLA
• Dr. Charlene Gamaldo, MD, Johns Hopkins: "Strategies to Infuse DEI into our DNA: Mechanism for the Neurology Community"

Our 2020-21 guest speakers:

• Erika Cheung, Ethics in Entrepreneurship: "Speak-Up Culture in Medicine"
• Christer Betsholtz, Uppsala Universitet: "Endothelial - Pericyte Signaling in Microvascular Physiology and Disease"
• Dr. Goncalo Castelo-Branco, PhD, Karolinska Institute: "Oligo Lineage Cells & MS"
• Dr. Keith Vossel, MD, UCLA: "The Future of AD Research at UCLA"
• Dr. Benedict Michael, PhD, University of Liverpool: "CoroNerve Study Group"
• Dr. Richard Benson, MD, PhD, NIH: "NINDS Health Disparities Strategic Planning Process"
• Dr. Jason Hinman, MD, PhD, UCLA: "Cerebrovascular Complications of Sars-CoV-2"
• Dr. Glen Finney, MD, Geisinger Health: "Neurology Advocacy"
• Patricia Furlong, President and CEO, Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy: "The Role of Advocacy in Medicine: a Case Study"
• Dr. Tamika Burrus, MD: "PAC Telemedicine"
• Dr. Deboleena Roy, PhD, Emory: "Molecular Feminisms"
• Dr. Catherine Kaczorowski, PhD, The Jackson Laboratory: "Systems Approach to Identify Resilience-based Targets for Aging and Alzheimer's"
• Dr. Chao Peng, PhD, UCLA: "Conformational Diversity of Pathological Proteins: Input from The Intracellular Environment"
• Dr. Bruce Lamb, PhD, UCLA: "Enhancing the Pre-Clinical Translational Research Pipeline for Alzheimer's Disease Through The MODEL-AD and TREAT-AD Consortia"
• Dr. Guoping Feng, PhD, MIT: "Dissecting neurobiological mechanisms of ASD: from genes to circuits"
• Dr. Michael Lin, MD, PhD, Stanford: "Watching the Brain at Work: New Reporters of Neuronal Activity"
• Dr. Andreas Tolias, PhD, Baylor: "A Less Artificial Intelligence"
• Dr. Lin Tian, PhD, UC Davis: "Watching the Brain in Action: Creating Tools for Functional Analysis of Neural Circuitry"
• Dr. Paul Mathews, PhD, UCLA: "Developing Small Molecule Readthrough Drugs to Treat the Multisystem Disorder Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T)"
• Dr. Adam Boxer, MD, PhD, UCSF: "Tau Protein As a Target for Neurodegenerative Therapies"
• Dr. Jane Paulsen, PhD, UW Madison: "Unraveling The Earliest Phases of Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Using CADASIL: A Collaborative NIH Proposal"
• Dr. Carsten Bonnemann, MD, NIH/NINDS: "Gene and Mutation-Specific Precision Therapies:  From GAN to the COL6 Related Dystrophies and Beyond"
• Dr. Iben Lundgaard, PhD, Lund University: "The Glymphatic System, From Mice and Pigs to Humans"
• Dr. Andy Shih, PhD, Children's Hospital Seattle: "Dissecting The Control of Blood Flow Through Brain Capillaries"
• Dr. Robert Hamilton, PhD, Neuroanalytix: "Advanced Analysis of Cerebral Hemodynamics: TCD, Machine Learning, and Robotics"
• Anna Spain Bradley, JD: "Reckoning with Global Racism"
• Dr. Sara Tabrizi, MD, PhD, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery: "Collins Day/Meeting The Therapeutic Challenge of Huntington's Disease"
• Keener, Bordelon, Flippen, UCLA Health: "UCLA Neurology Education Update"
• Dr. Wesley Kerr, MD, PhD, Dr. Sree Deepthi Muthukrishnan, PhD, Mayo: "Therapeutic Resistance Mechanisms in Glioblastoma"
• Dr. William Dauer, MD, Southwestern University: "From Molecule to Movement: Dissecting the Path from Dystonia Mutation to Motor Circuit Dysfunction"
• Dr. Christian Grefkes: "Brain Reorganization after Stroke"

Our 2019-20 guest speakers:

• Dr. Martin Monti, PhD, UCLA: "Non-Invasive Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound Stimulation in Disorders of Consciousness"
• Dr. Jared Diamond, PhD, UCLA: "Evolution of Human Language from Animal-Proto Languages"
• Dr. David Lynch, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania: "Friedreich Ataxia in 2019"
• Dr. Steven Cramer, MD, UC Irvine: "Biomarkers of Stroke Recovery"
• Dr. Gal Bitan, PhD, UCLA: "A Window into the Brain- Biomarkers in Brain-Derived Exosomes Isolated from the Blood"
• Dr. Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD, Washington University: "A Genomic Platform for Acute Stroke Drug Discovery"
• Dr. Michael Wolfe, PhD, University of Kansas: "Gamma-Secretase and the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease"
• Dr. Andrew Mammen, MD, PhD, National Institutes of Health: "Autoimmune Myopathy"
• Dr. Dwight Bergles, PhD, Johns Hopkins: "Oligodendrocyte Dynamics and Repair in the Adult Brain"
• Dr. Conrad Weihl, MD, PhD, Washington University: "Gene Discovery and Disease Modeling in Limb Girdle Muscular"
• Dr. Lee Sweeney, PhD, University of Florida: "Therapeutic Approaches to Treating Duchenne Muscular"
• Dr. Charles Czeisler, MD, PhD, Harvard: "Work Hours Regulations and Patient Safety in Residency Training: What is the Role of Sleep?"
• Dr. Joshua Sasine, MD, PhD, UCLA: "Immune Effector Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS)"
• Dr. Wayne Cornblath, MD, University of Michigan: "NeuroOpthalmology in the 21st Century"
• Dr. Krystal Huxlin, PhD, University of Rochester: "Efficacy, Dynamics, and Limitations of Visual Restoration in Hemianopia"
• Dr. Marc Dinkin, MD, Cornell: "Retrograde Trans-Synaptic Degeneration in the Human Visual System"
• Dr. Sashank Prasad, MD, Harvard: "The History and Mystery of Cortical Visual Disorders"
• Dr. Emily Dennis, PhD, USC: "Collaborative Approaches to Advance Neuroimaging in Traumatic Brain Injury"
• Dr. Peter Douglas, PhD, UT Southwestern: "Metabolic Preconditioning Protects Against Traumatic Brain Injury"
• Dr. Mark Burns, PhD, Georgetown: "Long Term Synaptic Modification Drives Cognitive Impairment After High-Frequency Head Impact"
• Dr. Sandra Rieger, PhD, University of Miami: "Jekyll & Hyde Functions of Hydrogen Peroxide: At the Crossroads of Peripheral Sensory Axon De- and Regeneration"
• Dr. Juliane Gust, MD, PhD, Seattle Children's: "CART Cell Neurotoxicity: Translational Insights"
• Dr. Darrin Lee, MD, USC: "Deep Brain Stimulation for Alzheimer’s Disease: Understanding Circuit Dysfunction"
• Drs. David Liebeskind, MD, and Elyse Singer, MD, UCLA: "Neurologic Complications of COVID-19"
• Dr. William Zeiger, MD, PhD, UCLA: "Functional remapping of the mouse somatosensory cortex after ischemic stroke"
• Cassandra Meyer, PhD candidate, UCLA: "A Mechanism of Estriol-Mediated Neuroprotection in a Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis"
• Dr. Katrina Choe, PhD, UCLA: "Unraveling mechanisms of social deficits in genetic models of autism spectrum disorders"
• Dr. Wesley Kerr, MD, PhD, UCLA: "An evidence-based history to identify patients with probable dissociative seizures"
• Dr. Kathryn Cross, MD, PhD, UCLA: "Pallidocortical Activity During Action Selection in Parkinson’s Disease"
• Dr. Amy Gleichman, PhD, UCLA: "Astrocyte heterogeneity after stroke: implications for neural repair"
• Dr. Robyn Klein, MD, PhD, Washington University: "Neuroimmune Mechanisms of Cognitive Dysfunction"
• Dr. Robert H. Brown, Jr., MD, University of Massachusetts: "A 2020 Perspective on ALS from Molecules Toward Medicines"
• Dr. Malu G. Tansey, PhD, University of Florida: "Targeting Soluble TNF to Reduce Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease"
• Dr. Yakeel Quiroz, PhD, Harvard University: "Brain imaging and biomarkers in preclinical autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease"