Monday, February 15, 2021, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EST

Mahlon DeLong,  Professor Emeritus Emory Neurology

"Brain Circuits, their Disorders and Paths to Deep Brain Stimulation”- My Life and Times in Neuroscience"

The fields of neuroscience, neurology and psychiatry have undergone rapid growth over recent decades, fueled by advances in neuroscience.  Mahlon DeLong’s initial studies in primates were centered on understanding the role of structures deep in the brain, in the basal ganglia, in the control of movement and their suspected role in Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.  In the course of these studies, he identified separate neural circuits for the control of movement, cognition, and emotion/reinforcement, fundamentally changing the prevailing view that these circuits were funneled together within the basal ganglia.  In subsequent studies in animal models he demonstrated that the signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s were correlated with altered neuronal activity in specific nodes of the motor circuit and that they could be reversed by selective interruption of the motor circuit. New treatment approaches to movement disorders especially in Parkinson’s followed, including lesioning and the less invasive and reversible technique of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) of specific areas of the “motor circuit.”  In combination with new pharmacologic and other forms of neuromodulation these studies have transformed neurology from a largely diagnostic to an increasingly therapeutic discipline. The older idea of “brain centers” in neurologic and psychiatric disorders has now been largely replaced by the understanding of both as “circuit disorders,” dispelling the notion that psychiatric disorders are fundamentally different from neurologic ones and suggesting that both  are potentially treatable by future less invasive approaches of “neuromodulation.”