High School in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, where he was elected senior class president.He then attended Harvard College, initially intending to study astronomy.But after learning about the controversial experiments with psilocybin conducted by psychology professor Timothy Leary and his colleagues, he became interested in the function of the human brain, and graduated Magna Cum Laude as...
The gold standard anesthesia for deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery is the "awake" approach, using local anesthesia alone. Although it offers high-quality microelectrode recordings and therapeutic-window assessment, it potentially causes patients extreme stress and might result in suboptimal surgical outcomes. General anesthesia or deep sedation is an alternative, but may reduce physiological...
Movement DisordersFebruary 2024Kyoungwon Baik, Yae Ji Kim, Mincheol Park et al.
Minor hallucinations (mHs) and well-structured major hallucinations (MHs) are common symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) psychosis. To investigate the resting-state networks (RSNs) in patients with PD without hallucinations (PD-nH), with mH (PD-mH), and with MH (PD-MH). A total of 73 patients with PD were enrolled (27 PD-nH, 23 PD-mH, and 23 PD-MH). Using seed-based functional connectivity...
Cannabis is increasingly available worldwide but its impact on cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) is unknown. Present cognitive safety data from study of an oral high-dose cannabidiol (CBD; 100 mg) and low-dose Δ9-tetrahydocannabinol (THC; 3.3 mg) drug in PD. Randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled study of a CBD/THC drug administered for 16.3 (SD: 4.2) days, with dosage...
ABSTRACT Clinical observations report a greater propensity to develop Parkinson's disease (PD) in amphetamine users. 3,4‐Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; “ecstasy”) is an amphetamine‐related drug that is largely consumed by adolescents and young adults, which may have neuroinflammatory and neurotoxic effects. Here, the objective was to evaluate in mice whether consumption of MDMA during...
Visual misperceptions and hallucinations are a major cause of distress in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), particularly in the advanced stages of the condition. Recent work has provided a framework for understanding the pathogenesis of these symptoms, implicating impairments from the retina to the integration of external information with preformed internal images. In this article, we...
Visual hallucinations (VH) in Parkinson's disease (PD) are a chronic complication in 30 to 60% of treated patients and have a multifaceted phenomenology. Flickering, faultive impressions, and illusionary misperceptions precede the core syndrome of stereotyped, colorful images. The patient variably recognizes these images as hallucinations, being rarely irritated or frightened and more often...