Stimulating Brains

Theodore H. Schwartz is a neurosurgeon, author, and the David and Ursel Barnes Endowed Professor of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In this episode of Stimulating Brains, we talk about his book Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery, a vivid account of what brain surgery really is – personally, technically, historically, psych...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains, I am delighted to welcome back Michael Okun, neurologist, movement-disorders specialist, Adelaide Lackner Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of Florida, Director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases, and National Medical Advisor of the Parkinson's Foundation. Mike was previously on the podcast in episode 25 together...

Karl Friston is one of the most influential neuroscientists of our time and a central figure in the history of human brain mapping. Many listeners will know him for the free energy principle, active inference, dynamic causal modeling, voxel-based morphometry, and many other theoretical contributions. In this episode, we take a different route and go back to the early history of  Statistical Parame...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains, I speak with Keith R. Mullett, who can uniquely tell a part of the DBS history that is often skipped. We often begin the story of modern DBS in Grenoble around 1987, when Alim-Louis Benabid and colleagues showed that high-frequency VIM stimulation could suppress tremor. Keith reminds us that Medtronic's first DBS system had already been implanted in 1969,...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains, I’m honored to speak with Mary Elizabeth Sutherland, a Deputy Editor at Nature whose areas of responsibility include cognitive neuroscience and a broad range of the behavioural and social sciences. If you work with clinical or human neuroscientific data in the field of brain stimulation and choose to submit to Nature, chances are high that Mary Elizabeth will...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains , we are honored to sit down with György Buzsáki, Professor of Neuroscience at New York University and one of the most influential thinkers in modern neuroscience. Dr. Buzsaki trained as a physician in Hungary, completed his PhD in neuroscience at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and went on to postdoctoral training in North America before building a decades...

In today’s episode of Stimulating Brains, we have the pleasure of speaking with Frans Gielen — a physicist and biomedical engineer who played a foundational role in shaping modern deep brain stimulation. Over more than three decades at Medtronic, Frans worked at the intersection of engineering, neurology, and surgery during the formative years of DBS, when stereotactic imaging protocols, targeting...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains , we sit down with Dr. Ludwig Zrinzo, Professor of Functional Neurosurgery at University College London and Head of the Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Queen Square. Drawing on decades of experience at the forefront of deep brain stimulation, Dr. Zrinzo reflects on the evolution of DBS from awake procedures to image-guided surgery under general anesthesia, emp...

In this episode of Stimulating Brains , we sit down with Dr. Eyal Zadicario, Chief Operating Officer at Insightec, to explore the remarkable evolution of focused ultrasound – from its experimental origins to its transformative role in functional neurosurgery today. Dr. Zadicario shares insights from over two decades at the forefront of innovation, reflecting on the challenges of translating breakt...

Today, we had the privilege of speaking with Dr. John Rolston, a leading voice at the intersection of neurosurgery, epilepsy, and brain stimulation. Dr. Rolston is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Epilepsy Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His pioneering work bridges clinical neurosurgery and computational neuroscience, focusing on how ele...

Today we had the privilege of speaking with a true pioneer in the field of neuropsychiatry and brain stimulation— Dr. Harold Sackeim. Dr. Sackeim is perhaps best known for his extensive research on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), but his contributions span a wide range of topics from treatment-resistant depression to the placebo effect in neurostimulation. As a founding figure in modern ECT resea...

In this episode, we journey through the remarkable career of Dr. Rees Cosgrove—a trailblazer in functional neurosurgery, Director of Epilepsy and Functional Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Cosgrove reflects on his formative years training in the very halls that were roamed by legends such as Wilder Penfield at the Montreal...

In this episode we will dive deep into the minds of leading researchers and clinicians in the field of neuromodulation. Today, we are thrilled to have Dr. Terry Sanger with us. Dr. Sanger is a renowned pediatric neurologist, engineer, and Chief Scientific Officer at CHOC, where he focuses on improving the lives of children with movement disorders—especially dystonia. He’s well known for combining...

In this episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Dr. Todd Herrington, a leading neurologist and director of the Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Herrington specializes in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, tremor, and dystonia, and his research focuses on the motor, cognitive, and psychiatric effects of DBS, leveraging intraoperative a...

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Jonathan Downar, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist based in Toronto, renowned for his pioneering research in transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for depression. You may recognize him from his landmark work on the Three-D Trial, which helped establish intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) as a rapid and effective alternative to standard repetitive TMS....

In this episode, we have a privilege to talk with Dr. Roxanne Lofredi, a prominent researcher investigating movement disorders and deep brain stimulation (DBS). Dr. Lofredi is based at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and is widely recognized for her groundbreaking contributions to understanding how basal ganglia networks drive motor symptoms in conditions such as dystonia and Parkinson’s dise...

In this episode of  Stimulating Brains , we're thrilled to have Jim McNasby join us. Jim is a deep brain stimulation (DBS) patient and the Chief Counsel at the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Jim has an inspiring story, not just as a DBS patient but also as a legal professional working at the forefront of Parkinson’s research advocacy. We’ll dive into his personal experience with DBS—how it has shaped...

Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Bálint Várkuti, a distinguished expert in the field of neuromodulation. Dr. Várkuti is the founder and CEO of CereGate , a pioneering company developing brain-computer interface technologies—referred to as computer-brain interface technologies—that aim to enhance neuromodulation therapies. Before founding CereGate , Dr. Várkuti made significant cont...

In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Mark McAuley, a deep brain stimulation (DBS) patient and the CEO of Astronomy Australia Limited, and Dr. Susan Boehnke, an Associate Professor at Queen’s University in Canada and director of the Neurotech Microcredential Program and the Neurotech Discovery Lab. Together, they've been part of remarkable efforts that not only focus on the practical an...

In today’s episode, we dive deep into two groundbreaking studies led by Daniela and Clément. We explore their 2022 Nature Communications paper on using cerebellar stimulation to alleviate levodopa-induced dyskinesias in Parkinson’s disease and discuss their 2023 paper uncovering the cerebellum’s role in regulating fear extinction through its connections with the thalamo-prefrontal cortex pathway....

In this episode, I was able to talk to Dr. Shan Siddiqi, who is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he and his lab focuses on brain circuit therapeutics. Shan’s work bridges the gap between neuroimaging and causality, exploring the mechanisms of brain stimulation and lesi...

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Suthana, a leading neuroscientist from UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and the Jane & Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. Dr. Suthana’s career sits at the intersection of neuroscience, neural technology, and engineering, focusing on memory disorders and innovative brain technologies. We explore her groundbreaking research on...

As a fourth installment of this podcast into key industry leaders in neuromodulation, this is our conversation with Milad Girgis, who is the VP and General Manager of the Brain franchise at Boston Scientific. Milad has dedicated over 25 years to the Medical Device Industry, with two decades at Boston Scientific. Before diving into his impressive tenure at Boston Scientific, we explore the earlier...

In this episode, we have an insightful conversation with Dr. Ali Rezai, who is the Associate Dean of Neuroscience at West Virginia University (WVU) and Executive Chair and Director of its Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI). We take a deeper dive into Dr. Rezai’s career, which features his notable achievement of performing 900 neurostimulator implants by 2006. We highlight Dr. Rezai’s involve...

Mallory Hacker is an Assistant Professor for Neurology in the team of David Charles, who is Professor of Neurology, Vice-Chair for Business Development and Strategy, as well as the Medical Director for Telehealth at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2006, after a stay at Alim Louis Benabids team in Grenoble, France, David started to investigate the question of whethe...