Dell Medical School Pediatric Neuroscience Program
Promoting discovery and innovation in the pediatric neurosciences
Eman Rettig, PsyD, has been selected as a committee member of KnowNeuropsychology, whose mission is to provide equitable access to quality neuropsychology and neuroscience education globally. The organization is also committed to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in education and training.
Congratulations, Dr. Rettig!
Congratulations to pediatric neurology resident Khushboo Verma, MBBS, whose poster entitled “Imaging and Psychometric Evidence to Support the Clinical Dementia Grading” received third place in the Texas Neurological Society’s winter conference resident poster competition.
Verma’s research explores the neural and behavioral basis of clinical dementia rating scales and proposes a computational model of dementia that explains most dementia-related variance observed in Pittsburgh compound B (PIB) PET imaging. She was the only Dell Med resident to receive a prize.
Congratulations to pediatric neurosciences headache fellow Konstantinos Tourlas, MD, who received the Frontiers in Headache Research Scholarship Award from the American Headache Society at their 2022 annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona. Tourlas, one of 11 award recipients, was recognized for a quality improvement project implementing depression screening in the Dell Children’s Pediatric Headache Center.
Jane Edmond, MD, was recently named president-elect of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and will serve as AAO President in 2024. Edmond hopes to leverage her role as President to address the increasing staffing and physician shortages and to advocate for expanding access to ophthalmologic care locally and nationwide, in part by recruiting equity-driven residents to the field.
Edmond has practiced pediatric ophthalmology and neuro-ophthalmology for 32 years. She is the director of the Mitchel and Shannon Wong Eye Institute at Dell Medical School, Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, and a past president of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. She has served in many leadership roles within the AAO, including Trustee-at-Large from 2012 to 2017.
Congratulations, Dr. Edmond!
Through the generosity of the Jedel Family Foundation, the neurosciences program is implementing three-dimensional presurgical modeling using a Formlabs 3BL 3D printer with Materialise Mimics software. This equipment will allow us to create three-dimensional models from a patient’s imaging studies that can facilitate surgical planning and serve as a teaching tool for patients, family members, and learners.
One patient who has benefited from 3D printing was a 17-year-old with Down syndrome who suddenly refused to swallow. A cervical CT confirmed a severe C1 dislocation with C1-2 instability and compression of the spinal cord. The 3D replica of the patient’s spine allowed for development of a surgical plan that avoided narrowing of the spinal canal, and the patient recovered completely after surgery.
On Nov. 14, 2022, the Dell Children’s Comprehensive Pediatric Epilepsy Center opened a second clinic in the medical office building on the campus of the new Dell Children’s Medical Center North hospital in North Austin. The new clinic provides neurology and neurosurgery consultations, neuropsychology evaluations, and EEG studies.
Services will continue to expand throughout the year to accommodate the growing need for pediatric epilepsy care throughout Austin and Central Texas.
Audrey Brumback, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded a three-year, $1,500,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health entitled “Functional Architecture of the Mediodorsal Thalamus.” Brumback’s team will use mice to map the structure and function of a part of the thalamus that is thought to affect conditions such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and schizophrenia.
The thalamus is typically considered a relay center that facilitates the transfer of incoming sensory messages to the brain cortex. But the thalamus is likely a more sophisticated structure that uses the incoming sensory information to orchestrate the activity of higher cortical brain areas. As one of the largest thalamic nuclei, the mediodorsal thalamus reciprocally connects with multiple cortical and subcortical brain regions, provides a strong projection to the medial prefrontal cortex, and coordinates the activity of cortical microcircuits there during prefrontal-dependent behaviors. But despite the importance of the mediodorsal thalamus in a range of behaviors and human disease, little is known about the physiology of the neurons in this region or how they influence behavior.
In preliminary work, Brumback discovered that two populations of neurons in the mediodorsal thalamus have distinct structural and functional profiles. She hypothesizes that each thalamic circuit is responsible for a different aspect of behavior: one circuit is responsible for social or emotional behaviors, while the other circuit modulates cognitive functions like attention and working memory.
In the funded work, Brumback’s team will directly test this model using a neuromodulation approach called optogenetics. Using flashes of light delivered directly into the brain via a fiber optic probe, she will activate or inactivate specific populations of neurons with millisecond precision while mice perform a battery of behavioral tasks. By turning each of the proposed circuits on or off during different types of behavior, she can test which circuit is important for each type of behavior. The team will also determine how individual neurons in these two thalamic circuits integrate synaptic inputs from different brain regions.
“The ability to noninvasively alter the activity of specific populations of neurons has enormous implications. The more specific we can be when targeting neurons, the greater the likelihood of finding an effective treatment with few side effects.”
E. Steve Roach, MD
The team’s future work will decipher how these and other thalamic circuits are altered in autism and whether they can be modified to treat cognitive or social-emotional symptoms. “The ability to noninvasively alter the activity of specific populations of neurons has enormous implications,” said E. Steve Roach, MD, Brumback’s Austin colleague. “The more specific we can be when targeting neurons, the greater the likelihood of finding an effective treatment with few side effects.”
We’re excited to announce that four of our Pediatric Neurosciences Program physicians have been named Castle Connolly 2023 Top Doctors.
Castle Connolly Top Doctors are peer nominated through surveys sent out to tens of thousands of doctors. Those results are rigorously vetted by a research team of Castle Connolly physicians based on several factors, including training, hospital and faculty appointments, outcomes, and clinical and interpersonal skills. Castle Connolly Top Doctors represent the top 7% of all U.S. practicing physicians.
Congratulations, Dr. Clarke, Dr. Edmond, Dr. Roach, and Dr. Tyler-Kabara!
E. Steve Roach, MD, recently received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Neurological Society at the organization’s annual winter meeting in Austin. He was selected for his pioneering work on stroke in children, his contributions to the study of tuberous sclerosis and other genetic diseases, and his success as a medical editor.
Roach is Professor of Neurology at Dell Medical School and Chief of UT Health Austin Pediatric Neurosciences at Dell Children’s.
Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition, Dr. Roach!
The first annual Neurofibromatosis Family Day Meeting took place on Nov. 12, 2022, at Dell Children’s Medical Center. Co-sponsored by the Dell Children’s Neurofibromatosis Center of Excellence, UT Health Austin Pediatric Neurosciences at Dell Children’s, and the Children’s Tumor Foundation, this daylong meeting allowed individuals with NF and their families to learn the latest developments in NF clinical care and research from the Center of Excellence team. Patients and family members attended presentations on key topics and could meet with the team during breakout sessions and meal breaks. Pediatric neuroscience presenters included Jane C. Edmond, MD, Emily Greenspahn, PhD, Manikum Moodley, MD, and Karla Robles-Lopez, MD, PhD.
The Neurofibromatosis Center of Excellence offers comprehensive diagnosis and management for children and adolescents with known or suspected NF. The team includes specialists from several disciplines, allowing us to provide the best possible medical care and psychosocial support to our patients and their families. This first Neurofibromatosis Family Day enabled individuals with NF and their families to learn more about the disorder, promoted relationship building among the families, and raised awareness for the disorder and the need for additional research funding.
