April 25, 2023, Filed Under: NewsRettig Selected as Committee Member of Neuropsychology Organization 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!
April 14, 2023, Filed Under: NewsNorth Campus Epilepsy Center Celebrates Grand Opening Dell Children’s Medical Center North hospital and medical office building(courtesy of Ascension Texas) On April 12, 2023, the Dell Children’s Medical Center North Campus in North Austin celebrated a community open house featuring Austin mayor Kirk Watson and leadership from Dell Children’s Medical Center. The campus’s medical office building houses the newest clinic of the Dell Children’s Comprehensive Pediatric Epilepsy Center, which provides neurology and neurosurgery consultations, neuropsychology evaluations, and EEG studies. Services will continue to expand throughout the year. Read about the open house in the Austin American-Statesman and CBS Austin.
March 6, 2023, Filed Under: carousel, NewsResident Places Third in Texas Neurological Society Poster Competition Khushboo Verma, MBBS, PGY-4, and E. Steve Roach, MD, at the TNS 2023 Winter Conference 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.
February 14, 2023, Filed Under: NewsTourlas Receives Frontiers in Headache Research Scholarship Sara Pavitt, MD, Konstantinos Tourlas, MD, Zoë Allen, RN, and Chelsea White, MSN, APRN, CPNP-PC, at the Scottsdale Headache Symposium poster exhibit 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. Konstantinos Tourlas, MD, at the Frontiers in Headache Research Scholarship awards ceremony
February 13, 2023, Filed Under: carousel, NewsEdmond Named President-Elect of the American Academy of Ophthalmology 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!
February 13, 2023, Filed Under: News3D Printing to Aid Neurosurgery Planning A 3D replica of a patient’s spine 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.
February 13, 2023, Filed Under: NewsEpilepsy Center Expands to North Austin Dell Children’s Medical Center North hospital campus 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.
February 13, 2023, Filed Under: NewsAre Thalamic Circuits Related to Autism or Other Conditions? Audrey Brumback, MD, PhD, in the Brumback Lab 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.”
February 13, 2023, Filed Under: NewsFour Pediatric Neurosciences Physicians Named 2023 Top Doctors Dr. Dave Clarke, Dr. Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara, Dr. Steve Roach, and Dr. Jane Edmond We’re excited to announce that four of our Pediatric Neurosciences Program physicians have been named Castle Connolly 2023 Top Doctors. Dave Clarke, MD, Chief of the Dell Children’s Comprehensive Pediatric Epilepsy Center Jane Edmond, MD, Pediatric Neuro-Ophthalmologist and Chair of the Dell Medical School Department of Ophthalmology E. Steve Roach, MD, Chief of UT Health Austin Pediatric Neurosciences at Dell Children’s Elizabeth Tyler-Kabara, MD, PhD, Co-Chief of UT Health Austin Pediatric Neurosciences at Dell Children’s and Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at UT Health Austin Pediatric Neurosciences at Dell Children’s 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!
February 10, 2023, Filed Under: carousel, NewsRoach Receives Texas Neurological Society Lifetime Achievement Award E. Steve Roach, MD, and Texas Neurological Society President Eddie Patton, MD. Photo courtesy Jessica Alexander/jealexphoto.com. 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!
