2015 Message from the Chair I am very pleased to be able to bring you up to date on funding ($10 million NIH)—a figure that doesn’t include the Michigan Neurology. Since the last edition of this newsletter recently awarded Udall (Parkinson’s) Center grant and the that was published in winter 2012, our department has Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) Center continued to grow. We now have 61 physician faculty, Without Walls grant highlighted in this issue. 18 residents and more than 20 post-residency trainees Having completed 10 years as chair, I am more aware than in subspecialties ranging from stroke and sleep to sports ever that a department is not a static entity, but a continuously neurology. evolving functional unit. With the formal installation of The growth in faculty is reflected in clinical activity. Last Hiroko Dodge, Ph.D. as the first Kevreson Research Professor year our faculty saw nearly 40,000 outpatient visits—almost this spring, we will have 14 endowed professorships that twice the number of patient visits recorded in 2007—and recognize the accomplishments of our more senior faculty, activity in all of the related laboratories including EMG, and 10 assistant professors with NIH-funded K (mentored EEG and the 28-bed sleep lab increased commensurately. career development) awards that recognize promise for the In the research arena, our faculty has continued to be future leaders of the field. These 24 faculty are only part of very successful, even in the face of a challenging funding our group of clinicians, educators and researchers. In an environment. In the 2013-2014 academic year, Neurology uncertain and rapidly changing environment, Michigan faculty published 291 articles in peer-reviewed journals Neurology is ready to face the future with optimism! and secured more than $17 million in external grant Endowed Bottom row (left to right): Hank Paulson, Groff Professor; Eva Feldman, DeJong Professor; David Fink, Brear Professor; Ann Little, Albers Collegiate Professor. Top row (left to right): Ben Segal, Holtom-Garrett Professor; Roger Albin, Professors Young Collegiate Professor; Bill Dauer, Levine Professor; Brian Callaghan, Dush Professor; Peter Todd, Harris Professor; Judy Heidebrink, O’Connor Professor; Kelvin Chou, Brown Professor; Ron Chervin, Aldrich Collegiate Professor Hiroko Dodge to be Installed as the Lakritz Gift Jump Starts Program First Kevreson Research Professor to Study Chorea Acanthocytosis This spring we will celebrate the establishment of the Kevreson Research Professorship with This October, a generous $1.1 million dollar gift from Bill and Liz Lakritz established a multidisciplinary the installation of Hiroko Dodge, Ph.D. as the first Kevreson Research Professor. research effort focused on chorea acanthocytosis and related neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Dodge is an internationally known expert in Alzheimer’s disease. She has active research Chorea acanthocytosis is a rare inherited neurodegenerative disease that disrupts programs in dementia prevention, in distinguishing normal cognitive aging from pathological many aspects of movement and thinking, in addition to causing epilepsy. The cause cognitive decline, and in applying demographic methods to clinical studies including cross- of the disease is a mutation in the gene coding for VPS13a, a protein essential for national comparative studies of healthy cognitive aging in collaboration with researchers of normal trafficking of proteins in neurons. Bill Dauer, Elinor Levine Professor, will the Okinawa Centenarian Study. direct the effort. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., professor of biological chemistry in LS&A, Since joining the Michigan Alzheimer Disease Center (MADC) team Dr. Dodge has taken an whose lab first identified VPS13a in 1997, will pursue fundamental studies of active role in the data management, improving data collection and distribution, and fostering VPS13a function in yeast. Dr. Dauer’s lab will create and study a mouse model collaboration among the MADC investigators. Dr. Dodge has more than 75 publications of the chorea acanthocytosis. In complementary studies, Jack Parent, professor of and is regularly invited to give seminars and presentations in Japanese universities, as well neurology and co-director of the epilepsy program, will use skin cells from as international conferences. She is also involved with an extensive network of dementia patients with the disease to create stem cell-derived neurons in order to study researchers worldwide. their functional properties. On the national level, Dr. Dodge served on the Scientific Review Committee for the National This is the first such multidisciplinary research team ever assembled to study Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC), and currently serves as a member on the NACC chorea acanthocytosis, and the team’s efforts will synergize with those supported Neuropsychological Tests Working Group. She is the chair of the Data Core Steering Committee by the Protein Folding Diseases Initiative. Abnormalities of the protein trafficking at NACC, and also chairs the statistical subcommittee. Dr. Dodge is an exceptional addition to network involving VPS13a are found in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Studies our faculty, and an important contributor to our Alzheimer Disease Center. Hiroko Dodge (left) and Hank Paulson that compare and contrast these different disorders may therefore provide clues of Bill and Liz Lakritz with Bill Dauer broad importance for understanding and treating neurodegenerative disease. NIH Awards $11.5 Million to Fund a Udall Neurology Multidisciplinary Clinics: Parkinson’s Disease Center at Michigan The Future is Now! At the end of September, Department of Neurology clinician- Because varenicline (known commercially as Chantix) is already researchers, led by William Dauer, director of the UMHS Movement available by prescription to help people stop smoking, advancing Neurology has a long history of multidisciplinary clinics for patients and working with the patients and caregivers to identify community Disorders program and the Elinor Levine Professor, were awarded the treatment to patients would be relatively straightforward if the whose condition requires additional expertise outside the purview resources as the need for support increases. Language and speech a five-year, $11.5 million grant from the National Institute of investigators were to find that it is effective in PD. The education and of neurology. Among the established clinics, perhaps the best pathologist Karen Kluin, assistant professor, sees patients on the Neurological Diseases and Stroke to establish a Morris K. Udall outreach component of the Udall Center will be led by Kelvin Chou, known are the multidisciplinary sleep clinics under the direction of day of the visit to provide a comprehensive evaluation and Center of Excellence in Parkinson’s Disease Research. The Udall William Brown Professor and co-director of the Surgical Therapies Ron Chervin that involves physicians from Pediatrics, Pulmonary recommendations regarding speech and swallowing difficulties. Center grant will fund three interrelated projects designed to better Improving Movement (STIM) deep brain stimulation program for Medicine, ENT and Psychiatry in addition to Neurology, with close The availability of these services further enhances the quality of care understand the role of the cholinergic system in falls, focusing on Parkinson’s disease. collaboration with the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, that can be provided for patients with ataxia and balance disorders. the effect of lost cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain and the and the multidisciplinary ALS clinic, under the direction of Brian The Center is an interdisciplinary collaborative effort that includes And Sindhu Ramchandren, assistent professor, recruited to Neurology pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN). Callaghan, Dush Professor, and Stephen Goutman, assistant professor, neuroscientist Martin Sarter, Ph.D., the Charles M. Butter Collegiate from Wayne State, has taken over direction of the transitional/adult that includes respiratory therapy, physical therapy, occupational In patients, Nicolaas Bohnen, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology Professor of psychology in LS&A, who will further develop a rodent Muscular Dystrophy Clinic and the Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) therapy, speech therapy, nutrition services, a social worker, and a and neurology, will use a new method of PET scanning developed model of falling in PD, and a team of biostatisticians and data clinic for children and for adults. The CMT Association recognized wheelchair specialist. at Michigan to link specific problems of gait and cognition to management specialists led by Ivo Dinov, Ph.D., professor in the the Michigan CMT Clinic as one of 10 Centers of Excellence in degeneration of these cholinergic pathways. In a related project, School of Nursing and Cathie Spino, Sc.D., research associate professor In the last two years, two new multidisciplinary clinics have been clinical and research care in the United States, and Dr. Ramchanden Roger Albin, Anne Young Collegiate Professor, will determine if of biostatistics in the School of Public Health. The biostatistical and added to the roster. Vikram Shakkottai, assistant professor, and expects to receive a similar designation from the Parent Project it may be possible to increase cholinergic traffic and improve gait data management team will help design and analyze the results of the Peter Todd, Patti and Bucky Harris Professor