Michael Racke, MD, Chair
The Department of Neurology focuses on education, clinical care and research of neurological diseases. The Department teaches the neurology clerkship in the College of Medicine and stimulates medical students in the neurosciences. Last year, four students from the College of Medicine matched in Neurology. In addition to the medical students, Neurology also instructs the Neurology house staff. Last year, six of eight returning Neurology residents scored higher than 90 percent, and seven of eight scored higher than 89 percent, on the in-service exam. Relating to clinical service, last year the Department of Neurology at University Hospital East was ranked 40th and the Department at University Hospital was ranked 44th in the nation by U.S.News & World Report. As for research, the Department participates in clinical trials in a number of areas, including epilepsy, stroke, movement disorders, neuromuscular diseases and multiple sclerosis.
Ongoing Research Programs
- The Department has a strong clinical and research program in spinal muscular atrophy, collaborating with Arthur Burghes, PhD, and Christine Beattie, PhD, in the Department of Neurosciences.
- Department faculty are participating in four National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trials relating to stroke.
- Investigators in the Department’s neuroimmunology research group are studying basic disease mechanisms in animal models and participating in parallel studies examining samples from patients with multiple sclerosis. The researchers are also involved with clinical trials.
Research Accomplishments of 2006
- Yousef Mohammad, MD, led an effort in testing transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment of migraine headache. The results of these studies were presented at the 2006 American Headache Society Meeting. This research attracted significant media attention and was featured in BBC news, The New York Times, Discovery and the London Times, plus other TV stations and magazines. A multicenter, placebo-controlled, randomized study is under way to confirm the efficacy of this novel therapy for aborting migraines.
- The neuromuscular research group participated in a study examining the effects of etanercept on inclusion body myositis, continuing the Department’s long tradition of studying novel therapies in neuromuscular diseases.
- The neuroimmunology research group spearheaded efforts to understand how the drug natalizumab increased the risk for multiple sclerosis patients to develop the devastating disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. Studies published in the Annals of Neurology and Archives of Neurology showed that natalizumab resulted in a dramatic reduction in immune surveillance of the brain. The researchers further confirmed that, after discontinuing natalizumab, the first patient to experience an exacerbation of natalizumab was the patient who experienced the greatest return of immune cells in the cerebrospinal fluid, further confirming that one mechanism of natalizumab is to keep immune cells out of the central nervous system.
