Neurology Clinical Researchers
-
AM Barrett, MD, FAAN, FANA, FASNR
Chair, Department of Neurology, UMass Chan Medical School, UMass Memorial Health Chief, Neurology, Central Western MA, VA Healthcare SystemPrograms: Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Neurology, Neurological Rehabilitation and Recovery
Category: NeurologyAM Barrett, MD, is a cognitive neurologist and neurorehabilitationist, and her research is focused on spatial cognition, right brain rehabilitation, and unawareness of deficits.
Barrett, MD, and her collaborators are pioneers and US leaders in spatial neglect rehabilitation. Her work demonstrates that when powerful right brain systems are damaged, hidden disabilities occur affecting functional vision, strength, and mobility as well as adaptive navigation. These problems devastate daily activities and can be dramatically improved with spatial retraining while wearing off-the-shelf optical prisms.
Dr. Barrett has trained hundreds of clinicians and led the treatment of thousands of patients, many of whom are relieved of spatial neglect symptoms, even years after stroke. The goal of her current, multisite, Veteran Administration-funded research is to identify a brain-based biomarker that can be used to personalize and facilitate spatial neglect care.
Learn more here: A.M. Barrett | Profiles RNS (umassmed.edu)
Anna M. Barrett, MD - UMass Memorial Health -
Idanis Berrios Morales, MD, Director, Neuroimmunology Fellowship Program
Assistant ProfessorPrograms: Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
Category: Neurology -
Roberto Bomprezzi, MD, PhD, Associate Clinical Director of Neuroimmunology and MS Center
Associate ProfessorPrograms: Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
Category: Neurology -
Wissam Deeb, MD, Director, Movement Disorders Fellowship Program
Assistant ProfessorPrograms: Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center
Category: Neurology -
-
Christopher Hemond, MD, Associate Research Director, Neuroimmunology and MS Center
Assistant ProfessorPrograms: Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
Category: NeurologyAcademic Profiles Physician Profile
Christopher Hemond's lab focuses on the development and clinical implementation of noninvasive, MRI-based imaging biomarkers to improve the accuracy of both (1) MS diagnosis and (2) personalized risk factors that portend disease worsening. We anticipate that these MRI markers will lead to earlier recognition of forms of MS that should be treated more aggressively, and alternatively- forms that may not need such potent medications that come with their own risks. Dr. Hemond's research is constantly inspired and motivated by the challenges and opportunities that he observes in his own clinical MS practice.Clinical Trials in Conquering Diseases
Chris works in the Neuroimmunology and MS Center.
-
Kevin Houston, OD, M.Sc
Associate ProfessorPrograms: Neurological Rehabilitation and Recovery
Category: NeurologyKevin Houston, OD, M.Sc. is a Doctor of Optometry with specialized training in low vision and neurological rehabilitation, focusing on restoration and rehabilitation in neurological diseases. His research focuses on restoring movement and repairing ocular structures paralyzed by stroke and other neuro-pathologies. Houston's ocular rehabilitation research has pioneered using rare-earth static magnetic materials including neodymium in prosthetic devices. Focusing on the need to develop solutions for visual impairments, Houston's Lab has combined innovative engineering and visual therapeutic technologies to diagnose and investigate the benefits of virtual reality-based oculomotor rehabilitation, perceptual motor training, spatial neglect, magnetic actuators for restoring ocular movements, magnetic prosthesis for VI nerve palsy, and improving low vision.
Houston, OD, collaborates with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, and other non-profit foundations to develop new prosthetic and assistive devices and create restorative movement therapies to promote visual system recovery through continuous funding. As a clinical research specialist, patients can participate in vision rehabilitation exercises including vergence and oculomotor therapy, and prism adaptation therapy, while trialing new optic and prism glasses developed from Dr. Houston’s Vision Rehabilitation Laboratory. The goal of vision rehabilitation therapy is to develop solutions for visual impairments caused by neurological diseases.
Learn more: Vision Rehabilitation Laboratory (umassmed.edu)
Kevin Houston | Profiles RNS (umassmed.edu)
Kevin Houston, OD - UMass Memorial Health -
Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, Director, Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
ProfessorPrograms: Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
Category: NeurologyClinical research in multiple sclerosis and other immune mediated CNS diseases
My research is devoted to understanding the nervous system immune mediated diseases. Specific areas of interest are the interplay between psychiatric disorder and multiple sclerosis (MS), the clinical trials using new agents in treatment of MS, the biomarkers of MS disease activity and the biomarkers of HIV associated neurocognitive disorders.Learn more: Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Center
Carolina Ionete | Profiles RNS (umassmed.edu)
Carolina Ionete, MD - UMass Memorial Health -
-
Brian Silver, MD, Endowed Chair in Neuroscience Research, Vice Chair of Clinical Operations
ProfessorPrograms: Stroke and Vascular Neurology
Category: Neurology
-
Mehdi Ghasemi, MD
Assistant Professor