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How quickly can you improve your gut health? Can diet help lower your risk of dementia? And what should you know about food labels and healthy weight loss? In this special live Q&A, Prof Tim Spector, Prof Sarah Berry and Dr Federica Amati answer your biggest nutrition questions and share practical, evidence-based advice you can use today. Drawing on decades of research and data from hundreds of thousands of people, they explain how diet can influence the gut microbiome, brain health, hunger, energy levels and long-term health. They discuss dementia risk, healthy snacking, intermittent fasting, ultra-processed foods, plant diversity, breakfast, food labels and the latest science on weight loss. You'll learn how quickly the gut microbiome may respond to dietary change, why some foods keep you fuller for longer, how to build a healthier breakfast, and simple ways to make better food choices. The team also explain why small dietary changes can have lasting benefits. If your daily food choices influence your gut health, brain health and future wellbeing, which change is worth making first?
Dr. Andy Southerland talks with Dr. Seemant Chaturvedi about recent research presented at the 2026 European Stroke Organization Conference. Read more about TAPIS trial. Read more about the ODEA-TIA trial. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
In part two of this series, Dr. Jeff Ratliff and Dr. Gabriela Figueiredo Pucci discuss the lessons and experiences that happen in neurology-related social media interaction. Show citation: Pucci GF, Gheihman G, Albin CSW. Education Research: A Qualitative Analysis of the Role of Social Media in Neurology Trainees' Professional Identity Formation. Neurol Educ. 2026;5(2):e200307. Published 2026 Apr 22. doi:10.1212/NE9.0000000000200307
Send us Fan MailGarrett Salpeter is an engineer, entrepreneur, author, and founder of NeuFit, best known as the creator of the NEUBIE device and his pioneering work at the intersection of neuroscience, rehabilitation, and human performance.In this episode of Leave Your Mark, Garrett shares the journey that began with a significant hockey injury and evolved into a lifelong pursuit of understanding how the nervous system influences recovery, movement, and performance. A former collegiate hockey player with a background in physics and engineering, Garrett's curiosity led him beyond traditional rehabilitation models and into the world of functional neurology, motor control, and neuroplasticity.Together, we explore the lessons hockey taught him about devotion, discipline, teamwork, and personal growth, as well as the pivotal experiences that shaped his professional path. Garrett discusses his transition from academia to entrepreneurship, the challenges of building a company from the ground up, and the development of direct current technologies designed to help people move, heal, and perform at a higher level.Our conversation dives into the concept of the nervous system as the body's software, the role of compensation in both physical and psychological health, and why addressing root causes often produces more meaningful and lasting outcomes than simply treating symptoms.Whether you're a coach, therapist, clinician, athlete, or simply fascinated by human performance, this episode offers a thoughtful look at innovation, resilience, and the ongoing pursuit of understanding how we adapt and thrive.In this episode, we discuss:• Garrett's hockey journey and the lessons sport taught him about excellence and contribution• How a serious injury led him to functional neurology and neuroscience• The nervous system's role in movement, pain, and performance• Leaving academia to pursue entrepreneurship and innovation• The development of the NEUBIE and direct current technology• Compensation patterns in rehabilitation and human behavior• Root cause thinking in performance and recovery• Building a business while staying aligned with personal values• The future of neuromuscular rehabilitation and human optimizationEnjoy the conversation.If you liked this EP, please take the time to rate and comment, share with a friend, and connect with us on social channels IG @Kingopain, TW @BuiltbyScott, LI+FB Scott Livingston. You can find all things LYM at www.LYMLab.com, download your free Life Lab Starter Kit today and get busy living https://lymlab.com/free-lym-lab-starter/Please take the time to visit and connect with our sponsors, they are an essential part of our success:www.ReconditioningHQ.comwww.FreePainGuide.com
Dr. Shuvro Roy talks with Dr. Michael Levy about satralizumab for treating relapsing MOGAD, current management challenges, and the encouraging results of this new therapy. Read more about this abstract. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
In part two of this series, Dr. Stacey Clardy and Dr. John Ney discuss the primary limitation of using claims data to estimate wait times for neurology services, particularly in rural areas or for subspecialty neurology care. Show citation: Laffargue EK, Van Der Goes DN, Wilson AM, Parziale SD, Sico JJ, Ney J. Neurology Wait Times After Primary Care or Emergency Department Visits Among the Commercially Insured Population in the United States: 2019-2023. Neurology. 2026;106(10):e218008. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000218008
In part two of this series, Dr. Stacey Clardy and Dr. John Ney discuss the primary limitation of using claims data to estimate wait times for neurology services, particularly in rural areas or for subspecialty neurology care. Show citation: Laffargue EK, Van Der Goes DN, Wilson AM, Parziale SD, Sico JJ, Ney J. Neurology Wait Times After Primary Care or Emergency Department Visits Among the Commercially Insured Population in the United States: 2019-2023. Neurology. 2026;106(10):e218008. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000218008
True Crime Trauma: The Mental Toll Of Exposing The Truth Some jobs force employees to carry a heavy emotional burden that's hard to put down when you clock out. Filmmaker Colin Browen's daily work involves uncovering decades of ignored and horrifying crimes against children. Browen details the mental toll of his career and how he's maintained his mental wellbeing while working on his upcoming true crime docuseries. Guest: Colin Browen, filmmaker, host, Murder in America & The Paranormal Files How Writing By Hand May Make You Smarter And More Creative In an era dominated by keyboards, it is easy to think handwriting is a skill of the past. But are we shortchanging our brains by abandoning this ability? Our guests this week explore the critical cognitive benefits of handwriting and discuss how the physical act of writing by hand significantly boosts literacy, memory retention, and idea generation. Guests: Dr. Danny Oppenheimer, professor of decision sciences, Carnegie Mellon University Dr. Virginia Wise Berninger, professor emerita, University of Washington Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
How Writing By Hand May Make You Smarter And More Creative In an era dominated by keyboards, it is easy to think handwriting is a skill of the past. But are we shortchanging our brains by abandoning this ability? Our guests this week explore the critical cognitive benefits of handwriting and discuss how the physical act of writing by hand significantly boosts literacy, memory retention, and idea generation. Guests: Dr. Danny Oppenheimer, professor of decision sciences, Carnegie Mellon University Dr. Virginia Wise Berninger, professor emerita, University of Washington Host: Greg Johnson Producer: Libby Foster Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
In part one of this two-part series, Dr. Jeff Ratliff and Dr. Gabriela Figueiredo Pucci shares the most important takeaway about professional identity formation among those actively engaged in neurology communities on social media. Show citation: Pucci GF, Gheihman G, Albin CSW. Education Research: A Qualitative Analysis of the Role of Social Media in Neurology Trainees' Professional Identity Formation. Neurol Educ. 2026;5(2):e200307. Published 2026 Apr 22. doi:10.1212/NE9.0000000000200307
Pediatric Insights: Advances and Innovations with Children’s Health
Children's Health is one of a few pediatric centers nationwide authorized to administer Skysona gene therapy for boys with early, active cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (cALD). Tune in to hear about clinical criteria and real-world impact. More on Skysona here. Learn more about Dr. Aquino. Learn more about Dr. Kayani.
Dr. Jeff Ratliff talks with Dr. Gabriela Figueiredo Pucci about how participation in a social media community influenced PIF and career development among neurology trainees. Read the related article in Neurology® Education. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
In part one of this series, Dr. Stacey Clardy and Dr. John Ney break down the difference between mean and median wait times for new neurology appointments. Show citation: Laffargue EK, Van Der Goes DN, Wilson AM, Parziale SD, Sico JJ, Ney J. Neurology Wait Times After Primary Care or Emergency Department Visits Among the Commercially Insured Population in the United States: 2019-2023. Neurology. 2026;106(10):e218008. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000218008
In this episode, editor in chief Joseph E. Safdieh, MD, FAAN, highlights articles about appointment wait times for commercially insured patients, post-traumatic headache severity in children with a family history of migraine, and the FDA approval of a drug for Alzheimer's agitation.
Do you ever hear a song that transports you to a specific place and time? This auditory wormhole has a name: musical daydreams. Music cognition expert Elizabeth Margulis studies why they happen, and what they tell us about our brains. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this phenomenon. Guest: Dr. Elizabeth Margulis is a professor and director of Princeton's Music Cognition Lab. She's also the author of “Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams.” Other episodes you may enjoy: A Neurologist Investigates His Own Musical Hallucinations Oliver Sacks Searched The Brain For The Origins Of Music Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that's keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Many people worry about memory loss and cognitive decline as they age. In this episode of Health Matters, host Courtney Allison speaks with Dr. Matthew Fink, neurologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, about how lifestyle choices—especially diet—can help protect the brain. Dr. Fink explains the MIND diet, a combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets, which emphasizes whole foods like leafy greens, berries, fish, nuts, and olive oil while limiting salt, sugar, and ultra-processed foods. He breaks down how key nutrients such as B vitamins and antioxidants support brain metabolism, reduce inflammation, and may slow the aging process. The conversation also highlights the brain's high energy demands and why proper nutrition is essential for cognitive function. Dr. Fink shares research showing that healthy lifestyle interventions can significantly lower the risk of dementia and discusses the broader benefits of the MIND diet for heart health and stroke prevention. Finally, Dr. Fink outlines additional habits that support brain health, including regular physical activity, quality sleep, and social connection, emphasizing that even small, gradual changes can lead to meaningful long-term benefits. Chapters 00:00 – Why Brain Health Is in Your Control How lifestyle choices can reduce dementia risk and why prevention starts early 03:00 – What Is the MIND Diet? Key components of the Mediterranean and DASH diets and how they support the brain 06:00 – Brain-Boosting Nutrients and Foods to Avoid The role of B vitamins, antioxidants, and which foods increase risk 10:30 – Beyond Diet: Exercise, Sleep, and Daily Habits How movement, rest, and social connection contribute to cognitive health Key Topics Covered MIND diet overview Mediterranean diet and DASH diet Brain metabolism and energy use B vitamins and brain health Antioxidants and inflammation Foods that support cognitive function Foods to limit (salt, sugar, processed foods) Dementia and Alzheimer's prevention Stroke and heart disease connection Exercise and brain function Sleep and cognitive health Lifestyle changes for healthy aging Takeaway Message You have more control over your brain health than you might think. By focusing on whole, nutrient-rich foods, limiting processed options, staying active, and getting enough sleep, you can significantly reduce your risk of cognitive decline and support a healthier brain as you age. Doctor Bios Matthew E. Fink, MDis currently the Louis and Gertrude Feil Professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and neurologist-in-chief at NewYork Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. In addition, he is chief of the Division of Stroke and Critical Care Neurology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and vice chair of the medical board. Dr. Fink attended college at the University of Pennsylvania, medical school at the University of Pittsburgh, and served as resident and chief resident in internal medicine at the Boston City Hospital. He came to New York and trained in neurology at the Neurological Institute of NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and served as chief resident under Dr. Lewis P. Rowland. Subsequently, he joined the faculty of Columbia University and became the founding director of the Neurology-Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit at NewYork-Presbyterian and was appointed associate professor of clinical neurology and neurosurgery while at Columbia. Dr. Fink was a founding member and chair of the critical care section of the American Academy of Neurology, and the research section for neurocritical care of the World Federation of Neurology. He is board-certified in internal medicine, neurology, critical care medicine, vascular neurology, and neurocritical care. He has been elected as a Fellow of the American Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology, and the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association. Throughout his career, Dr. Fink has been involved in the education and training of students, residents and fellows in the field of stroke and critical care neurology, as well as an active participant in clinical research within this field. He is a leader in this new specialty, has lectured widely, and has published many research and clinical articles in the field of stroke and critical care. In addition, he currently serves as editor of the monthly publication, NEUROLOGY ALERT, and is a past-president of the New York State Neurological Society.
Many providers focus on symptoms but what if the real issue is hidden toxicity, neurological dysfunction and structural instability?In this episode of the Vibrant Wellness Podcast, Dr. Sarah Kotlerman shares how her team combines advanced imaging, concentrated chiropractic care and functional laboratory testing to uncover the root causes behind chronic illness.Topics include:• Why toxicity testing should be foundational in complex cases • Heavy metals, mycotoxins, environmental toxins and PFAS • The importance of testing over guessing • NeuroZoomer insights and brain autoimmunity • Structural instability and chronic inflammation • Why objective testing changes clinical outcomes • How Vibrant Wellness testing supports clinical decision making
Primary stroke prevention is a critical opportunity for neurologists, with most stroke risk driven by modifiable factors such as hypertension and lifestyle behaviors. This episode highlights practical tools and strategies, including Life's Essential 8 and contemporary risk calculators, while also exploring evolving approaches to shared decision making and secondary prevention. In this episode, Katie Grouse, MD, FAAN, speaks with Mitchell S. Elkind, MD, MS, FAAN, author of the article "Stroke Prevention" in the Continuum® June 2026 Cerebrovascular Disease issue. Dr. Grouse is a Continuum® Audio interviewer and a clinical assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco in San Francisco, California. Dr. Elkind is the Chief Science Officer for Brain Health and Stroke at the American Heart Association in Dallas, Texas, and a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University in New York, New York. Additional Resources Read the article: Stroke Prevention Subscribe to Continuum®: shop.lww.com/Continuum Earn CME (available only to AAN members): continpub.com/AudioCME Continuum® Aloud (verbatim audio-book style recordings of articles available only to Continuum® subscribers): continpub.com/Aloud More about the American Academy of Neurology: aan.com Social Media facebook.com/continuumcme @ContinuumAAN Guest: @MitchElkind Full episode transcript available here Dr Grouse: Neurologists have generally been more involved in secondary stroke prevention, but primary stroke prevention is increasingly recognized as an important topic of discussion for neurologists. Today, I have the opportunity to interview Dr. Mitchell Elkind, who wrote the article on stroke prevention in the newest Continuum issue on cerebrovascular disease. Dr Jones: This is Dr. Lyell Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Continuum. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio. Be sure to visit the links in the episode notes for information about earning CME, subscribing to the journal, and exclusive access to interviews not featured on the podcast. Dr Grouse: This is Dr. Katie Grouse. Today, I'm interviewing Dr. Mitchell Elkind about his article on stroke prevention. This article appears in the June 2026 Continuum issue on cerebrovascular disease. Welcome to the podcast, and please introduce yourself to the audience. Dr Elkind: Thank you so much, Katie. So, my name is Mitch Elkind, and I'm the Chief Science Officer for Brain Health and Stroke at the American Heart Association and a stroke neurologist by background. Dr Grouse: Well, I just want to start by saying that I really enjoyed reading this article. I think this is just a really wonderful article I recommend strongly. Such a high yield, an important topic for a lot of us who see patients who are interested in learning about their stroke risks or need help with, uh, stroke prevention after having a stroke. So, I wanted to start. What's changed in the last couple of years? You know, what are some big highlights that you really want to stress that are different from maybe the last time we reviewed this topic? Dr Elkind: Sure. Well, there's been a lot of development in the field of secondary stroke prevention, for one thing. But even beyond that, I think we increasingly appreciate how important it is to control what we call the social drivers of health on the earlier side, primordial or primary prevention. And that has been a big advance, I'd say. And I would also say, I think it's really important for neurologists to understand some of those questions about primordial and primary prevention. You know, we tend to get involved with patients after they've had a stroke or maybe a TIA, some kind of event. But sometimes we find people who are following for, you know, non-stroke related conditions who have risk factors also. And we can really play an important role in identifying those risk factors and helping to prevent a first stroke or vascular event as well. So, I think it's real important for us to be doctors even before we're neurologists. So, you know, Katie, about ninety percent of stroke risk is modifiable, so we can do a great job as neurologists in preventing stroke. And one of the most important things that we can do is to identify and treat high blood pressure. And recently, actually, the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology guidelines on the management of hypertension have said that treatment of high blood pressure not only prevents stroke, but it can also help to prevent cognitive decline and dementia. And this is the first time that we've had a class of recommendation one and level of evidence A, the highest level of recommendation we give for the use of blood pressure treatment to prevent dementia. And that's largely based on the results of some large trials that have come out recently showing that you can prevent dementia with blood pressure control. So that's a really exciting link, I think, between cardiovascular risk factor control and subsequent brain health. It just illustrates the role that neurologists can play in, so many conditions outside of stroke as well. Dr Grouse: That's a really great point, and I want to get a little more into the idea of primordial stroke prevention. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that might be? Dr Elkind: So primordial prevention refers to addressing how we can prevent risk factors from occurring in the first place, and how can we improve the environments in which people live. You know, we know that only about twenty percent of health outcomes is dependent on what happens between the patient and their doctor in the office. About eighty percent of it is due to what happens in the environments in which we live, work, pray, and play. And so that's what we mean when we refer to the social drivers of health. What is the neighborhood like where somebody lives? Do they have access to healthy food? Do they have places where they can go to exercise? Is there air pollution in the area that may affect their health? You know, one really interesting fact that's become apparent in the last few years is that air pollution is a major risk factor for stroke. Something like a sixth of all strokes can be attributed to the quality of air. And so, what are the things we can do at the broader public policy, community level to reduce the risk of risk factors like high blood pressure and diabetes even before somebody has an event that brings them to the attention of the doctor? So that's what we're thinking about with regard to primordial prevention. It's the earliest stage in prevention. Dr Grouse: And that's really fascinating. You know, I think an area that we haven't, as neurologists, really put a lot of our time thinking about, but clearly a very important thing. I really appreciated reading your article about how you incorporated the fact that, you know, a lot of these risk factors overlap very, very closely with all the risk factors for various types of cardiovascular events. And I would imagine that the work you've done as the Chief Clinical Science Officer for the American Heart Association has informed a lot of the way you've thought about-Trying to bring all these risks together and think a little bit more holistically about the whole thing. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and the work that you've done on the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 score? Dr Elkind: Sure. I can't take credit for it. It's really work that was done by others at the Heart Association, particularly a cardiologist and epidemiologist named Don Lloyd-Jones. But many other volunteers participated. Life's Essential 8 is our approach to primary stroke prevention and cardiovascular prevention more broadly. We say Life's Essential 8 because it includes four health behaviors and four health factors that people can observe to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease. The four factors are kind of things like know your numbers, your blood pressure, your blood sugar, your body mass index, right, which is a combination of weight and height, and your cholesterol level. So, know those numbers and keep them within the recommended ranges, and talk to your doctor if they're not. And then four lifestyle behaviors. So, one of them is to eat a healthy diet, and typically that means the Mediterranean diet. It means getting regular exercise, and we recommend 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Of course, it means abstinence from smoking or other tobacco products. And the last one, the eighth one, which I was so excited about when we added this, is sleep, recommending at least seven hours of sleep a night. So, I was really excited about this because we used to talk about Life's Simple 7, and then the last iteration of our recommendations included this recommendation for adequate sleep because of the mounting evidence of the importance of sleep to cardiovascular health. But sleep is really a brain function, right? And so, it was really the first, in a way, specific brain function that was added to our recommendations. So that's Life's Essential 8. People can read about it online at heart.org and recommend it to your patients as a simple way for people to understand the best approach to reducing their risk of cardiovascular disease, including stroke. Dr Grouse: I checked it out myself after reading the article. It's very accessible to patients. It's a great education tool. And they can, you know, see their own score and use that in their own way to, to think about what their risks are and how they can help mitigate and then rescore themselves down the line. There's also, though, on the kind of more the clinician side, the PREVENT calculator as well. Could you tell us a little bit more about how we could use that in approaching this patient population? Dr Elkind: Yeah. So, I think of Life's Essential 8 as being a patient-focused tool that people can use. PREVENT is really more for clinicians. Anybody can look it up online and enter your data into it. There's a risk calculator online. But the basic idea behind PREVENT and other similar risk calculators is that it's a way to estimate somebody's risk of having a cardiovascular event like stroke or a heart attack or even heart failure by entering information about your health. And we used to think, we used to use something called the ASCVD, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk calculator, or the Framingham score. Framingham Heart Score, for example, was another one. PREVENT is the latest version, and it has several advantages over those earlier types of risk predictors. For one thing, it predicts risk at younger ages as well. It goes down to age 30. It predicts risk over a longer duration of time, so over 30, 10 or 30 years. It eliminates the use of race as an item to put into the calculator and substitutes for that socioeconomic status, so it's not a race base, but a measure of social disadvantage. And it also includes kidney elements, kidney measures. It includes renal function, for example, that weren't included in prior measures, and it can also be used to predict heart failure, which was not part of the original calculators. Another major advantage of the PREVENT study is that it was based on real-world data from about three million patients, many, many more than the 50,000 or so that the earlier risk calculators were based on. So, it has a much more robust data set and therefore allows a bit more precision in the ability to predict future risk of events. And typically, primary care doctors would enter their patient's data, calculate a risk, and then based on the results of the risk calculator, they can make recommendations about what type of medications a person should take or what other strategies they could use to reduce their risk. And so that's the role that PREVENT plays, is really being focused more for the clinician than the patient. Dr Grouse: Really great tool for us to be aware of. You earlier alluded to the fact that neurologists are in the situation where we sometimes are helping patients with this primary prevention. But you also make a case for why it's in the patient's best interest for us to be involved in, in these conversations when we can, when we have the opportunity. Can you tell us more about that? Dr Elkind: Shared decision-making is really important because we know that people aren't going to lead the healthiest possible lives if they're not invested in their care. And so, a doctor telling somebody what to do if the patient doesn't want to do it is gonna have limited benefit.So we emphasize the importance of shared decision-making as much as possible. And I think that where this comes up a lot is actually in the situation of, for example, atrial fibrillation, where patients will often be put on a blood thinner. And many people are fearful of blood thinners. They worry about the risk of bleeding. Maybe they know a relative who's had a bleeding complication from a blood thinner, and so they may be disinclined to try it. And so, it's really important to have these discussions about the risks and the benefits of medication and engage the patient in thinking about this. And there are even tools and visual aids that people can look to to help explain some of these complicated concepts to patients. So, these are the kinds of things that reflect implementation science as a way to improve adherence. We know what works in a clinical trial setting often, but the challenge is translating that into the real world and getting our patients to use the medications that we believe scientifically have been shown to be of benefit. I've actually been surprised sometimes at conversations I've had with people, in some cases, healthcare professionals who resist going on blood thinners because of their fear of the complications. And I feel like the evidence is there. Why don't they believe me? And that's why it's really important to have the conversation. Even our peers and colleagues can sometimes question the evidence, and it's important for us to be aware of that. Dr Grouse: Absolutely. I think that sounds very reasonable to me, and hopefully these tools will help us with making some of these decisions with our patients. Now, turning our attention a little bit to secondary prevention. So, you know, someone's already had a stroke or a TIA, sort of thinking about what we can do to optimize their risk factors for further strokes. You know, I think there has been some changes that have happened, I think, in the last few years that might be affecting some of the decisions we're making and some of the advice we're giving our patients. I wanted to talk a little bit about GLP-1 receptor agonist medications. Is the data there to support use of this either in secondary prevention or even in primary prevention in the case of stroke? Dr Elkind: There is evidence that supports the use of GLP-1s for stroke prevention. We need more data, though. We need trials that focus only on patients with stroke, for example, there have been studies in patients with cardiovascular disease broadly that include stroke patients. But if you look at the subcategory just of stroke patients alone, the data in that subgroup alone don't always show a benefit. And so, we need more data that's focused on stroke patients alone. So, I think the data are continuing to emerge, but we need more still. Dr Grouse: Is there any development in the thought about whether we should be putting patients on antiplatelet therapies for incidental, incidentally identified strokes? For instance, if you got an MRI for migraine or for other reasons and you found one, no history of any stroke-like symptoms. Should we be putting these patients on aspirin or any other types of therapies? Dr Elkind: That's a really great question. And again, it's an area where there's some controversy and really, there's really no definitive data that would support using antiplatelet therapy in people with incidentally discovered infarcts or what we call, you know, whispering strokes or silent strokes. Many stroke neurologists will use antiplatelet agents. This is one of those areas where it's so important to identify the risk factors. As we were saying before, patients who have other neurological disorders like migraine or epilepsy may turn out to have cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes and high blood pressure. That's why it's so important for neurologists to be able to treat those patients or refer them to specialists who can. Patients who have incidentally discovered lesions similarly are a group where we should be looking for risk factors. So, I don't think of it only in terms of do we put them on an antiplatelet or not, but really more holistically, can we identify their other risk factors and address those? Should the patient's information be entered into a risk calculator like PREVENT, for example, so that we can come up with a more global or holistic measure of their cardiovascular risk and address that as appropriate? Because if they are at risk for stroke, they're also at risk for cardiac events, including heart attack, heart failure, sudden cardiac arrest, and so forth. So, I think of it as a, as a great kind of teachable moment or an opportunity to catch somebody and bring them into the healthcare system more broadly and address those other potential risk factors. Dr Grouse: Speaking of, of risk factors that we often like to think about and work up when possible, in cases where it seems certainly possible the patient had an embolic stroke, but perhaps we've done a few weeks or four weeks of cardiac monitoring, have not found any evidence of atrial fibrillation. What's new and what's the current recommendations for doing further monitoring when there's high suspicion for cardioembolic stroke? Dr Elkind: This is a really active area of investigation, and guidelines suggest that we should do some cardiac monitoring for atrial fibrillation after an unexplained stroke, but it's not clear how much we should do. Studies generally show that the longer you follow somebody on a cardiac monitor after stroke, the more likely you are to detect atrial fibrillation. It could be as high as thirty percent after a few years. And that's great. And if you detect atrial fibrillation, people usually end up being recommended for a blood thinner. But how extensively we should monitor remains unknown. And I think a lot of the investigation recently has been around the question of, are there other ways to get that information rather than waiting six months or a year for the person to develop atrial fibrillation?It's a little bit funny logically to think a person has a stroke today, a year later you discover atrial fibrillation on the monitor, and you say, "Oh, now I know what caused your stroke a year ago." Right? The temporality, the causality perhaps is off in that case. And so, wouldn't it be better if we could tell what somebody's risk of having another cardioembolic stroke is, or the likelihood that they have atrial fibrillation is at the time that you first see them for the stroke, you know, in the hospital, for example. And so, there's some really new technologies that have evolved like AI or artificial intelligence interpretation of EKGs that can give a really good indication of which people are gonna go on to develop atrial fibrillation. And so, I think we need some more trials in that area to demonstrate that we can detect the risk of AFib and treat that even before it appears on one of those delayed monitors. That's an area that I think is very exciting right now. There's also a further question with regard to how to treat these patients, which is that sometimes atrial fibrillation is a consequence of the stroke itself. So, we can think about what people call known AF, meaning atrial fibrillation that's known about before the stroke even occurs, versus AF that's detected after a stroke, or AF-DAS, people will say. Those may have very different implications for the risk of recurrence and what the person's cardiovascular status is. So, I think what we've learned over the last few years is that atrial fibrillation, it used to be like the slam dunk for a stroke neurologist. It was the easy thing. You know, you had a stroke, you have AFib, you should be on a blood thinner. Now we know that there's lots of different kinds of AFib. There's AFib before stroke, there's AFib after stroke, there's burden of atrial fibrillation. So, some people may have 30 seconds of AFib, some people may have several hours, some people may be in it continuously. It comes and goes, and that can make it challenging to manage. So, we have a lot more work to do to understand this problem better. Dr Grouse: That also gets me into some other interesting areas that I think there's still some question, you know, how aggressive should you be? How often is it a case of is this correlated or is this causative? For instance, when a patent foramen ovale is, is discovered in patients with cryptogenic stroke. Are there any tools or new developments to help us understand whether these PFOs should be closed in these cases? Dr Elkind: PFO and stroke is a great story that's been going on for decades. And again, we've made tremendous progress in the last several years. So, it's true that about 20% or so of people have a PFO, and because of that, it can be really hard to say with any certainty whether an individual patient sitting in front of you, that the PFO was the cause of their stroke. Rarely we can have a really high degree of certainty. You know, if somebody has, uh, a DVT, for example, and shortly after that maybe they have pulmonary embolism and then a stroke, and we can say, "Oh, clearly this was a paradoxical embolism," went to the lungs and then some crossed over and went to the brain. That happens really infrequently. Most of the time you're faced with a patient who has a PFO and a stroke, and they may have some other risk factors. There are some tools that we can use to help figure out the likelihood that a PFO is related to a stroke. One of those is called the ROPE score or the risk of paradoxical embolism score that was developed by David Thaler and, uh, David Kent from Tufts and a group of other investigators as well. That score allows one to say what the likelihood is that the PFO was causative of the stroke, and it's based on a person's risk factors such that the younger you are, the more likely it is the PFO caused the stroke. And the absence of risk factors make it more likely that the PFO caused the stroke. So, the higher your ROPE score indicating the fewer other reasons you have a stroke, the more likely the PFO is to be causative. So that can be helpful in identifying patients who may have had a stroke due to their PFO. There are other features that are identified in something called the PASCAL score, which is a way of assessing the degree of shunting and whether or not there's an atrial septal aneurysm that can be used as additional factors that lead to the likelihood that a PFO was causative rather than just incidental. So, by putting this kind of information together, we can kind of do precision neurology or precision prevention by identifying which patients with a PFO are really the ones we need to worry about and do procedures like closure. Dr Grouse: I look forward to hearing more and learning more as more advances are made in these areas. Dr Elkind: Thank you. Dr Grouse: And thank you so much for joining us today to talk about your article. Dr Elkind: Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I really enjoyed it. Dr Grouse: Again, today I've been interviewing Dr. Mitchell Elkind about his article on stroke prevention. This article appears in the June 2026 Continuum issue on cerebrovascular disease. Be sure to check out Continuum Audio episodes from this and other issues, and thank you to our listeners for joining today. Dr Monteith: This is Dr. Teshamae Monteith, Associate Editor of Continuum Audio. If you've enjoyed this episode, you'll love the journal, which is full of in-depth and clinically relevant information important for neurology practitioners. Use the link in the episode notes to learn more and subscribe. AAN members, you can get CME for listening to this interview by completing the evaluation at continpub.com/audioCME. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio.
In our June episode, we celebrated the Year of the Brain, as new discoveries continue to deepen our understanding of how the brain works. Dr. Anna Hohler, Director of Neurology for Northwell Health's Westchester Region, joined us to share simple steps we can all take to support brain health. In this month's Key Note, Dr. Hohler focuses on migraines—a common and often debilitating condition affecting millions – explaining what they are, who's most at risk and how to treat and prevent them. The Takeaway We want to hear from you! Please complete our survey: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/member-feedback. Drop us a line at our social media channels: Facebook// Instagram // YouTube. Get started on your health journey by making an appointment with your primary care physician to know your numbers: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/healthyrelationships Get to know your numbers at 1199SEIUBenefits.org/healthyhearts. Relieve stress with mindfulness classes at 1199SEIUBenefits.org/healthyminds. Find healthy recipes and meal-prep tips at 1199SEIUBenefits.org/food-as-medicine. Visit the Healthy Living Resource Center for wellness tips, information and resources: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/healthyliving. Get inspired by fellow members through our Members' Voices series: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/healthyliving/membervoices. Stop by our Benefits Channel to join webinars on building healthy meals, managing stress and more: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/videos. Visit our YouTube channel to view a wide collection of healthy living videos: youtube.com/@1199SEIUBenefitFunds/playlists. Sample our wellness classes to exercise body and mind: 1199SEIUBenefits.org/wellnessevents. Guest Bio Anna DePold Hohler, MD, FAAN, is a distinguished neurologist, researcher and educator who recently joined Northwell Health to lead and enhance neurology services for its Westchester Region, as well as launch a new virtual neurology program across the 28-hospital system. An internationally recognized expert in movement disorders, she is deeply involved in research furthering novel therapies to treat Parkinson's disease. Dr. Hohler began her career in the U.S. Army, serving for eight years and achieving the rank of major.
Dr. Madeline Russell discusses a common complication faced by patients with acute ischemic stroke. Show citation: Schwarz G, Cascio Rizzo A, Ambler G, et al. Contrast-Associated Acute Kidney Injury After Thrombectomy for Ischemic Stroke: Prognostic Impact and CAN-REST Predictive Score. Neurology. 2026;106(6):e214655. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000214655
In today's episode, Haylie Pomroy sits down with neurologist Dr. Daniel Kantor, President Emeritus of the Florida Society of Neurology and VP of Clinical Research and Development at the Gateway Institute for Brain Research, for a conversation that challenges how most people think about unexplained symptoms, chronic illness, and the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Kantor walks through why over-reliance on MRI results has left a generation of patients told nothing is wrong with them, why the nervous system, immune system, and gut microbiome communicate in ways most clinical silos never account for, and why gluten in the American food supply is a fundamentally different substance from what people eat in Europe. He also goes deep on the most disabling aspect of chronic illness, and it is not weakness or physical limitation. It is uncertainty. One in five Americans lives with a chronic illness, and most of them go years before getting a diagnosis that helps them make sense of their experience. This conversation is for them. Tune in to Fast Metabolism Matters. If your body feels like it's running on empty, overburdened, or just not responding the way it used to, Haylie's latest book, Toxic Overload, tells you exactly what to do. Download your free digital copy today and start understanding what your body is trying to tell you. Free Download: Get Your Copy of Toxic Overload
Carepoint Journal Club is a quarterly series with discussions about a medical topic, brought to you by Carepoint's Emergency Physicians.
Dr. Stacey Clardy talks with Dr. John Ney about wait times for new neurology office visits among commercially insured persons in the United States. Read the related article in Neurology®. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
Dr. Bradley Ong discusses the use of eptinezumab in combination with patient education is an effective treatment for reducing disease burden in patients living with chronic migraine complicated by medication overuse. Show citation: Jensen RH, Lundqvist C, Schytz HW, et al. Eptinezumab With Patient Education for Chronic Migraine and Medication-Overuse Headache: The Randomized, Placebo-Controlled RESOLUTION Trial. Neurology. 2026;106(8):e214863. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000214863
Dr. Michael Park shares stories from a Proof-of-Concept study that combined lumbar or lumbosacral decompression and fusion surgery and neuromodulation. Dr. Park is a former principal investigator of the SynerFuse® proof-of-concept clinical trial and primary inventor of SynerFuse® technology. Dr. Park is a board-certified neurosurgeon, an associate professor, MnDRIVE neuromodulation scholar, William P. Van Wagenen Fellow, and director of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery in the Department of Neurosurgery and Neurology at the University of Minnesota. He has extensive experience with neuromodulation – deep brain stimulation. This surgical therapy for brain conditions such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia modulates brain activity to treat symptoms. He also uses neuromodulation such as spinal cord stimulation and intrathecal drug delivery to treat cancer pain and chronic pain. In addition, working with epilepsy specialists, Dr. Park performs procedures such as surgical placement of depth and grid electrodes in the brain to identify abnormal epileptic brain areas and offer treatments which include resection, response neural stimulator (NeuroPace) placement, laser ablation, and vagal nerve stimulation. If patients are unable to have surgery, Dr. Park is able to treat some of the conditions using Gamma Knife radiosurgery as well. Dr. Park received his dual Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in economics and electrical engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Arts in biology from the University of Kansas. He holds an M.D. and Ph.D. from the School of Medicine and Graduate Studies, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, at the University of Kansas. He completed his neurosurgery residency at the Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University. He was awarded the prestigious William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and completed his fellowship with Dr. Jean Régis at the Université de la Méditerranée Aix-Marseille II, Assistance Publique L'Hôpital d'Adulte de la Timone in Marseille, France, in 2010. He was an Assistant Professor and the Director of Functional Neurosurgery and Pain in the Department of Neurosurgery at University of Louisville until 2014. Resources: Integrating Dorsal Root Ganglion Stimulation with Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion: Proof of Concept Study SynerFuse University of Minnesota Sponsor The Cox 8 Table by Haven Medical
Dr. Natalia S. Rost from The American Academy of Neurology joined Vineeta on The WCCO Morning News.
This Is Not About Running: Highlighting Abuse In Youth Sports When youth running prodigy Mary Cain was scouted by top universities in the eighth grade, she thought she was chasing her athletic dreams – but the reality of the elite sports pipeline would cost her far more than she ever imagined. This week she pulls back the curtain on the toxic culture of high-stakes youth athletics, detailing how top-tier programs often exploit young prodigies. Guest: Mary Cain, author, This Is Not About Running Before The World Forgot: A Look At The Women Who've Advanced Society Throughout history, the female trailblazers who have made monumental achievements in science, literature, and innovation have been systemically minimized or forgotten. Our guests this week discuss how societal biases erased women's intellectual contributions and why recognizing these female geniuses is essential to completing our understanding of human progress. Guests: Janice Kaplan, author, The Genius of Women Catherine Whitlock, author, Ten Women Who Changed Science and the World Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Before The World Forgot: A Look At The Women Who've Advanced Society Throughout history, the female trailblazers who have made monumental achievements in science, literature, and innovation have been systemically minimized or forgotten. Our guests this week discuss how societal biases erased women's intellectual contributions and why recognizing these female geniuses is essential to completing our understanding of human progress. Guests: Janice Kaplan, author, The Genius of Women Catherine Whitlock, author, Ten Women Who Changed Science and the World Host: Greg Johnson Producer: Polly Hansen Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Dr. Josh Turknett — neurologist and author of The Genius and the Impostor — introduces the show, the framework, and the two characters living inside your brain that determine whether you rise to the moment or fall apart. In this episode: What performance neurology is and how it differs from clinical neurology What's happening in your brain when you collapse under pressure Meet the Genius and the Impostor — two systems in your brain fighting for control What to expect from this podcast Links: Pre-order The Genius and the Impostor (August 2026): GeniusAndImpostor.com Learn more about Performance Neurology at performanceneurology.institute Subscribe to the newsletter: Brains, Banjos and Beyond on Substack Instagram: @brainjojosh
Dr. Dan Ackerman talks with Dr. Reza Bavarsad Shahripour about the diagnostic performance of 4 major modalities: TCD, TTE, TEE, and cardiac CT in patients with embolic stroke of undetermined source. Read the related article in Neurology® Clinical Practice. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
Dr. Shuvro Roy and Dr. Amanda Piquet discuss a brief overview of stiff person syndrome, as well as the trial and the trial results. Read more about this abstract on the AAN website. Show transcript: Dr. Shuvro Roy: Hi, this is Shuvro Roy from the University of Washington and welcome to today's Neurology Minute. I just wrapped a longer conversation with Amanda Piquet from the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. We were just talking about the recent Phase 2 trial evaluating Miv-cel Kyverna Therapeutics' anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in patients with Stiff Person Syndrome. Amanda, would you mind taking us through a brief overview of SPS as well as the trial and their trial results? Dr. Amanda Piquet: So Stiff Person Syndrome, or SPS, is a rare disabling autoimmune neurologic disease with a major unmet need. About 80% of patients ultimately lose their mobility and we currently have no FDA approved therapies. Existing treatments like IVIG, rituximab, and plasmapheresis are all used off label, often requiring chronic dosing and frequently failing to stop progression. KYSA-8 is a registrational Phase 2 study of 26 patients with refractory SPS. Patients experienced rapid, statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement across all primary and secondary endpoints. Primary endpoint was the timed 25-foot walk. And this improved by a median of 46% at 16 weeks. Of patients requiring walking aids at baseline, about two thirds no longer needed them by week 16 to complete that 25-foot walk. Some patients who had struggled to walk were even able to run again after treatment. Another key finding was that all patients discontinued chronic immune therapies and remained off treatment as of the last follow-up. From a safety standpoint, miv-cel was generally well tolerated, with no high grade CRS or ICANS observed. In my opinion, these outcomes are unlike anything we've seen previously with Stiff Person Syndrome and may represent a paradigm shift, not only for SPS, but potentially for other antibody-mediated neurologic diseases more broadly. Dr. Shuvro Roy: Just curious, are there any upcoming implications for the application of this treatment for patients, you think, in the coming year or so? Dr. Amanda Piquet: Kyverna, the company who developed miv-cel, has initiated a rolling BLA with the FDA for potential approval and this would be, if approved, the first CAR-T therapy for SPS. So we're anxiously awaiting the outcome of that process. Dr. Shuvro Roy: Fantastic. Amanda, thank you so much for your time. And if you are intrigued and want to know more details behind the findings in the study as well as a conversation around CAR-T therapy for autoimmune neurologic disease as a whole, I encourage you to check out the Neurology Podcast feed for our full conversation there. Thanks for tuning in.
Dr. Shuvro Roy and Dr. Amanda Piquet discuss a brief overview of stiff person syndrome, as well as the trial and the trial results. Read more about this abstract on the AAN website. Show transcript: Dr. Shuvro Roy: Hi, this is Shuvro Roy from the University of Washington and welcome to today's Neurology Minute. I just wrapped a longer conversation with Amanda Piquet from the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. We were just talking about the recent Phase 2 trial evaluating Miv-cel Kyverna Therapeutics' anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in patients with Stiff Person Syndrome. Amanda, would you mind taking us through a brief overview of SPS as well as the trial and their trial results? Dr. Amanda Piquet: So Stiff Person Syndrome, or SPS, is a rare disabling autoimmune neurologic disease with a major unmet need. About 80% of patients ultimately lose their mobility and we currently have no FDA approved therapies. Existing treatments like IVIG, rituximab, and plasmapheresis are all used off label, often requiring chronic dosing and frequently failing to stop progression. KYSA-8 is a registrational Phase 2 study of 26 patients with refractory SPS. Patients experienced rapid, statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement across all primary and secondary endpoints. Primary endpoint was the timed 25-foot walk. And this improved by a median of 46% at 16 weeks. Of patients requiring walking aids at baseline, about two thirds no longer needed them by week 16 to complete that 25-foot walk. Some patients who had struggled to walk were even able to run again after treatment. Another key finding was that all patients discontinued chronic immune therapies and remained off treatment as of the last follow-up. From a safety standpoint, miv-cel was generally well tolerated, with no high grade CRS or ICANS observed. In my opinion, these outcomes are unlike anything we've seen previously with Stiff Person Syndrome and may represent a paradigm shift, not only for SPS, but potentially for other antibody-mediated neurologic diseases more broadly. Dr. Shuvro Roy: Just curious, are there any upcoming implications for the application of this treatment for patients, you think, in the coming year or so? Dr. Amanda Piquet: Kyverna, the company who developed miv-cel, has initiated a rolling BLA with the FDA for potential approval and this would be, if approved, the first CAR-T therapy for SPS. So we're anxiously awaiting the outcome of that process. Dr. Shuvro Roy: Fantastic. Amanda, thank you so much for your time. And if you are intrigued and want to know more details behind the findings in the study as well as a conversation around CAR-T therapy for autoimmune neurologic disease as a whole, I encourage you to check out the Neurology Podcast feed for our full conversation there. Thanks for tuning in.
In this episode of Talk Dizzy To Me, vestibular physical therapists Dr. Abbie Ross, PT, NCS and Dr. Danielle Tolman, PT sit down with neurologist Dr. Kristin Steenerson to unpack Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness, also known as 3PD or PPPD.If you feel dizzy, floaty, rocking, disoriented, or visually overwhelmed most days — especially in places like grocery stores, airports, busy restaurants, or while scrolling screens — this episode explains what may be happening in the brain and nervous system.Dr. Steenerson breaks down the diagnostic criteria for 3PD, why symptoms can continue even after the original vestibular problem improves, how 3PD overlaps with vestibular migraine, and why treatment often requires a combination of education, vestibular therapy, medication, cognitive strategies, lifestyle support, and gradual exposure.This conversation also addresses why 3PD is sometimes misunderstood, how hypervigilance plays a role, and why there is real hope for recovery and improved quality of life. Hosted by:
This episode of the Brain & Life Podcast was recorded live at the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting. Co-hosts Dr. Daniel Correa and Dr. Katy Peters were joined by Jen Pollack from Alzheimer's Association, Rich Brennan from ALS Association, and Julienne Verdi from Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy to discuss how advocacy and sharing stories makes a difference. Tune in to hear these field experts share the positive effects of collaboration and advocacy! Additional Resources Become a Brain Health Advocate The Why Behind Your Weakness- ALS Association ASAP Act- Alzheimer's Association HEADACHE Act- Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy We want to hear from you! Have a question or want to hear a topic featured on the Brain & Life Podcast? · Record a voicemail at 612-928-6206 · Email us at BLpodcast@brainandlife.org Social Media Guests: ALS Association @als; Alzheimer's Association @alzassociation; Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy @allianceforheadacheadvocacy Hosts: Dr. Daniel Correa @neurodrcorrea; Dr. Katy Peters @KatyPetersMDPhD
In this episode, we review the high-yield topic of Basal Ganglia from the Neurology section.Follow Medbullets on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/medbulletsInstagram: www.instagram.com/medbulletsofficialTwitter: www.twitter.com/medbullets
In recognition of Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month, this episode of the Research Insights Podcast revisits "Dementia Neurology Deserts and Long-Term Care Insurance Claims Experience in the United States." The discussion explores how limited access to neurology specialists—often referred to as dementia neurology deserts—may correlate with long-term care insurance claims experience. Geography can influence the timing of diagnosis, access to treatment, and the progression of care needs, with meaningful implications for both health outcomes and financial security. As dementia affects individuals, families, and care systems alike, this episode offers important perspective on how gaps in specialty care intersect with long-term care planning. Listen now to revisit this timely and impactful conversation.
Krissy Dilger of SRNA welcomed University of Washington neuroimmunologist Dr. Shuvro Roy for an open Q&A on transverse myelitis (TM). Dr. Roy explained how TM can be both a presentation and a diagnosis, with “idiopathic TM” used when extensive testing finds no underlying cause and noted that recurrence should prompt reevaluation for conditions like NMOSD, MOGAD, or neurosarcoidosis and consideration of preventive immunotherapy [00:06:16]. He addressed audience questions about lifestyle and rehabilitation topics including diet, metabolic health, exercise, sleep issues, and safe considerations around CBD or THC-containing gummies, and reviewed approaches to chronic pain, spasticity, physical therapy timelines, and spinal cord stimulation (including ArcX) [00:13:20]. Dr. Roy also discussed the current status of peptides and stem cells, highlighted emerging cell-based therapies like CAR-T, and answered a case question about a high MOG antibody titer and its diagnostic implications [00:24:53].Shuvro Roy, MD is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Washington, specializing in neuroimmunology, with a specific focus on multiple sclerosis (MS) and related neuroimmunologic disorders. He is Co-Director of the UW SRNA Center of Excellence for Rare Neuroimmune disorders. He is also a core teaching faculty member for the UW Medicine Multiple Sclerosis Center's fellowship program, contributing to clinical education and research initiatives like the ECHO MS program in collaboration with the National MS Society. Dr. Roy is actively engaged in projects aimed at improving access to care, addressing healthcare disparities, and enhancing patient safety for individuals living with MS and related conditions. He has co-authored recent research articles in medical journals on a variety of topics, including studies on stiff person syndrome, encephalomyelitis, MOG-antibody disorder, and multiple sclerosis treatment protocols. Dr. Roy is dedicated to helping his patients thrive amid challenging, lifelong neurological conditions.00:00:00 Welcome and Introductions00:01:24 What Is Transverse Myelitis00:03:30 Common Causes and Mechanisms00:06:16 Diagnosis Versus Presentation00:10:39 Monophasic or Recurrent00:13:20 Diet Do's and Don'ts00:17:25 Aging and Long-Term Health00:24:53 Peptides and Stem Cells00:33:07 Fatigue Sleep and CBD or THC-containing gummies00:37:58 Chronic Pain Options00:43:55 Physical Therapy Recovery00:47:56 Spinal Cord Stimulation ArcX00:51:46 Stopping Pregabalin Safely00:52:59 Trials and Rehab at Any Age00:56:00 MOG Titer and Diagnosis01:00:02 Closing
Social determinants of health, including housing, food access, insurance status, and structural inequities, significantly influence stroke prevention, recovery, and long term outcomes. These factors affect biological risk, treatment adherence, and disparities in care, even when traditional clinical measures are addressed. This episode highlights practical strategies for integrating screening, leveraging multidisciplinary teams, and identifying opportunities for advocacy to improve patient outcomes. In this episode, Teshamae Monteith, MD, FAAN, speaks with Nneka L. Ifejika, MD, MPH, author of the article "Social Determinants of Health and Their Impacts on Stroke Prevention and Outcomes" in the Continuum® June 2026 Cerebrovascular Disease issue. Dr. Monteith is the associate editor of Continuum® Audio and an associate professor of clinical neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida. Dr. Ifejika is an adjunct professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and the chief scientific officer of the Division of Academics at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, Louisiana. Additional Resources Read the article: Social Determinants of Health and Their Impacts on Stroke Prevention and Outcomes Subscribe to Continuum®: shop.lww.com/Continuum Earn CME (available only to AAN members): continpub.com/AudioCME Continuum® Aloud (verbatim audio-book style recordings of articles available only to Continuum® subscribers): continpub.com/Aloud More about the American Academy of Neurology: aan.com Social Media facebook.com/continuumcme @ContinuumAAN Host: @headacheMD Full episode transcript available here Dr Monteith: Two patients have the same stroke, but when they return, they have very different outcomes. We can look into some of their comorbidities, but something we don't spend enough time talking about is the social determinants of health. Stay tuned to this discussion. I promise you, you'll become a better neurologist. Dr Jones: This is Dr. Lyell Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Continuum. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio. Be sure to visit the links in the episode notes for information about earning CME, subscribing to the journal, and exclusive access to interviews not featured on the podcast. Dr Monteith: This is Dr. Teshamae Monteith. Today I'm interviewing Dr. Nneka Ifejika about her article on social determinants of health and their impacts on stroke prevention and outcomes. This article appears in the June 2026 Continuum issue on cerebrovascular disease. How are you? Welcome to our podcast. Dr Ifejika: Thanks for having me. I'm doing great. Dr Monteith: Great. So, can you introduce yourself to our audience? Dr Ifejika: Sure. I'm Dr. Nneka Ifejika. I am the Chief Scientific Officer of Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, Louisiana. But I'm also a cerebrovascular rehabilitation doctor. I've been practicing for about nineteen years, and am happy and honored to be a contributor to this Continuum Neurology article. It's a really important topic. Dr Monteith: Great. So, what got you into this field, first of all? Dr Ifejika: Well, I was deciding between PM&R and neurology, and I was putting in both match lists. And I thought about it and I leaned toward PM&R, but stroke still had a grasp on my heart and my mind. And so, after I finished my residency, I joined the UT Houston stroke team, and I did a, thankfully did a two-year fellowship and became cross-trained in stroke as well as physical medicine rehab. So, I am a jack of both trades. Dr Monteith: So, you got your way in a way. Dr Ifejika: I did. Dr Monteith: You know, we have a lot of learners that are listening, so it's always, uh, nice for them to be inspired, I think, by people's career paths. So why don't we talk about the objectives of your article? Dr Ifejika: Sure. So, one of the most important things that we wanted to do was make sure that medical students, residents, faculty, and fellows understood the impact of social determinants of health on stroke recovery and stroke rehabilitation. It's not as simple as you have hypertension, hyperlipidemia, we're going to manage your stroke risk factors. Oh, you had an ischemic stroke. You presented in time for the window. We're going to give you endovascular therapy and then modified Rankin scale at hospital discharge in ninety days. No, no, no. The stroke survivor and their caregivers and their family have a lot more to deal with outside of what we look at during the acute stroke hospitalization and post-acute rehabilitation. Things like, can they afford the medication that we're prescribing? Antiplatelet agents or anticoagulation can be extremely expensive. Do they have housing insecurity? Is there food insecurity? What's going on behind the scenes that we are not addressing that can directly impact the admission rate and the readmission rate after we take care of a stroke survivor? Dr Monteith: I love the article because you took a real deep dive into social determinants of health, what they are, why they matter, and what we can do about them. And so why don't we talk a little bit about the NINDS framework for social determinants of health? I think many of us might not be familiar with the framework per se. Dr Ifejika: So, the framework consists of multiple domains specifically that relate to social determinants of health that were published in Neurology a couple of years ago. So, I do hope that people who are hearing this recording actually read them. There are interpersonal domains, there are classic medical domains, there are indeterminate domains, and there are six total domains. And health domains are the last domain. So, things like when it comes to housing insecurity, food insecurity, that's a domain of social determinants of health. When it comes to chronic racism, when it comes to biases that patients experience, those actually impact outcomes. So, there are six separate indices that we're going to get into in detail and how we address them as clinicians, whether it be at the medical student level, resident level, faculty level, to integrate the social determinants of health in our care plans, because we could be doing a much better job. And I think it'll be really important from the interpersonal perspective when we really relate to our patients and their families that we ask these questions. For example, if we're prescribing someone to have treatment for their diabetes mellitus and ha- and, and be taking insulin, if they have housing insecurity and they're in a homeless shelter, they have to leave the homeless shelter during the day. So, what happens to the insulin that we prescribe? These are variables that we are not considering on a regular basis, but they directly relate to compliance. Dr Monteith: Great. So that was one thing I wanted to bring up. We're very good at measuring blood pressure and trying to determine, uh, the association between stroke outcomes and things that we can measure, glucose, lipids, blood pressure. What is the evidence for social determinants of health and stroke outcome? Dr Ifejika: The evidence is growing, and there have been many publications that have come out that are, are going to be highlighted in this article related to structural determinants of health inequities, like structural racism, as well as disparities related to ethnicity and race. There's geographical disparities. For example, a lot of patients are, are primarily concerned about rural versus urban, whether you have access to different post-acute rehabilitation, whether you have access to secondary stroke prevention because you simply don't have the transportation from a, a rural area to get to a drugstore to get things available to you. Social status. There are actually publication related to socioeconomic status and the concerns when it comes to air pollution. So particulate matter 2.5, we know that that has a direct impact on stroke outcomes and health overall, but we don't really think about it as a structural determinant of health inequity. There's several multiple layers of research that have gone on specifically that have been cited in the literature that relate directly to social determinants of health and how we can address them moving forward. Dr Monteith: And what I found interesting in your article in that you gave at least a few examples where social factors like income, education were controlled for, and maybe in large part it is, but even when you control for some of these very obvious social risk factors, you still have inequities. Dr Ifejika: Absolutely. And I think it was really important to show that we had strong peer review evidence behind this, as it wasn't just something that we were creating or hypothesizing about. There have been studies that have been done over this over decades of time, showing the impacts of social determinants of health on outcomes. But the question and concern that we have is we know this growing body of literature continues to expand. What are we doing about it when it comes to education of the future generations of providers who will be caring for this population? Dr Monteith: Before we get into how, you know, what we're going to do about that, let's just kind of put that link, cause the evidence is there. How does it drive biology? Dr Ifejika: It's a great question. So, for example, particulate matter 2.5 in air pollution has been shown to have an existing impact on hypertension, raising your blood pressure. So that's a direct effect of a social determinant of health related to socioeconomic status because people who live in areas with higher air pollution are... They're not green spaces. They live near highways. Those are areas that unfortunately are also impacted by food deserts. Food deserts, if you're not able to get fresh fruits, vegetables, whole foods, increases your risk of developing diabetes, hyperlipidemia, also increases your sodium intake, again, increasing hypertension. These things are all connected to biological determinants. It's just that we're not asking about them necessarily within the social history when we're taking people into the hospital, but they have direct effects. Dr Monteith: Great. Neurologists tend to be busy and, you know, we're... have all of these things that we're being asked to do and chart and click and all of that stuff. And so how can we more readily integrate screening for social determinants of health and that conversation into the work we do? We recognize it's important. We recognize it's an important risk factor. There's a lot of these determinants. So, what is a good way to do so? And I, I know that in the paper you've, you've given different roles to different team players, so I want you to talk about that too, but just kind of even a regular routine office visit. Walk us through a way we can more easily integrate that kind of conversation. Dr Ifejika: It's an excellent question, and what I've recommended that we do in a standard office visit is utilize the time before the visit to send out screeners. So, for example, usually with an electronic medical record, you can send documents before the visit even starts, where people can check off whether they have any concerns regarding housing, food insecurity. They can check out their location of where they live, whether they live near a highway or not near a highway. It's specifically related to socioeconomic status. We can ask about insurance status, whether they have insurance, insured versus uninsured, but then also types of insurance, whether they have Medicaid insurance versus Medicare insurance. Then even drilling even further, type of Medicare insurance, Medicare Advantage versus traditional Medicare, cause all of those things actually play a role in this. Dr Ifejika: And evaluate these things and don't take time during your office visit. Send these screeners out beforehand. Have them be assimilated by your medical staff. Make sure you're utilizing every resource that you have at your disposal to help streamline things, so by the time the person comes in for the visit, you've primed the pump. You have this information already in your hands at your fingertips cause it was sent out in advance, and you have your medical staff already have an understanding of. If they didn't fill it out electronically, give it to them in the lobby. Make sure they have a handwritten copy in the lobby so that when they come into the office visit, you have the information at your fingertips. Dr Monteith: Are there any particular resources that you recommend for those types of screeners? Dr Ifejika: What I've used in the past, if you have patient-reported outcomes, so the PROMIS instruments, that's a good start. It doesn't get into the details of housing insecurity, food insecurity, but it's a good start to help prime questions and to start the conversation during your office visit. In my clinics, I do a PROMIS 27 on every patient, as well as a PHQ-9 for depression on everyone. And then I collect data longitudinally, and I can always drill down on factors that I noticed that could become a problem moving forward. Dr Monteith: Yeah. And then also in your article, you spoke a bit about this impact from the acute presentation in the hospital to rehab. Dr Ifejika: Yeah. Dr Monteith: So why don't you talk about these different entry points where we can really engage our patients and try and help reduce their burden? Dr Ifejika: Sure. So, healthcare can be quite fragmented, and the stroke patient, stroke survivor, and their family member have no grasp of that. They've had a stroke, and they may be going from the ER to the ICU to the stroke unit to the floor to the rehab unit, and we see it as multiple levels of care, multiple types of providers. They see it as one hospital. And the concern that we have is, at those branch points, things get dropped, and we have the opportunity to pick things up at those branch points. So, during the acute care hospitalization-Primarily, that's the establishment of what has happened, how we're gonna treat it, what are the variables that we can control for right now to address those determinants of health moving forward, and to specifically looking at whether they were taking medications before, whether they could afford medications before, what that looks like at hospital discharge. Is there any duplication of medications? If a person is taking Coreg and you prescribe metoprolol, but they still have the Coreg at home, should we have really prescribed the metoprolol? We're just spending money that they may have concerns when it comes to access to care and the cost of these prescriptions. So, it's the responsibility of the acute care physician to kind of look at that. Those are subtle things that we think are subtle, but they add up quickly for the family when it comes to having one group of medications that's the same class and having to buy another type. When it comes to post-acute rehabilitation, it's really an important time to screen for whether the caregiver can handle what's occurring. So specifically, if the caregiver is already burning out and the average length of stay for a stroke patient is five days and they've come to rehab for two weeks, what's gonna happen in the next two years or the next four years? So, during the post-acute rehabilitation phase, it's time to kind of look at that and drill down on those kind of questions. Also, the levels of care, Dr Ifejika: it's really important to look at other levels of rehabilitation, so skilled nursing facilities, making sure people have access to that if they need to, if the caregiver is burned out and they don't have the ability to go straight home. Because acute inpatient rehab, the goal of it afterwards, is to go straight home. It's not to go to another facility. So, you need to have that screener in place when it comes to whether the family can take care of this person, and whether the family can do it in an effective way to prevent them being readmitted. Dr Monteith: Great. I also like that you spoke about kind of the team approach and different roles, both for screening and for intervention, both being very important, especially the intervention. And so why don't you give us a few examples how the team could break up the responsibility and how also for the intervention component that can be done. Dr Ifejika: Sure. So, I broke up the team into several levels. So, the team medically is the medical student, resident, and faculty physician. However, the team also includes the support staff, so your case manager, your social worker, the therapist, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, the pastoral services, all these members of the team. You know, sometimes as physicians, we don't read those notes. There's a lot of information in the notes from social work, care coordination, and the therapist. They get down to subtleties cause they're asking questions, for example, "What kind of equipment do you have at home? How many stairs do you have at home? What level of house do you have, one story, two story? If you live in an apartment, do you have an elevator access?" That's important for someone with hemiparesis. When it comes to medications, when it comes to insurance status, when it comes to your ability to have the mechanisms to pay for care as an outpatient, social workers are required to ask these questions cause they have to figure out resources for the patient and their family to help facilitate improved outcomes. So, they have to ask questions regarding these tasks. The concerns are, do we read what they're saying? So, it's really important to interact with them, and if it's not something that you're looking at in the chart, cause we're all so tied to our computers, find where they are in the hospital. Walk by their office and have a chat. Run your list with them, especially for people who you're concerned have vulnerabilities, and make sure that you're setting an example for your medical students with your faculty doing so. If you're looking at it from the medical student, resident, faculty perspective, medical students, listen. This is your opportunity to really contribute to the team as well as learn about social determinants of health and research in their fields. You are the boots on the ground for the medical team. You are the ones who should be priming the pump and asking these questions of the family members. We're sending you into the rooms to do a history and physical. Social determinants of health should be a part of your history and physical, and you should be taking what we're saying in this article and asking these questions and tying it into your resident. Now, the resident is the work person of the hospital. We all know this. Things run through the resident. Things run through the fellow. It's really important that they have this information in a manner that is negotiable. The list keeps getting longer, and a resident doesn't need to be overburdened. It needs to be synthesized in a manner that can help facilitate the resident being able to act as well as communicate any concerns to the faculty. And at the faculty level, we are the voices that can affect change. So, if there's any concerns when it comes to advocacy, research, making sure that people are accessing care in a way that makes sense, particularly when it comes to the ability for us to galvanize change on a national level, that's kind of our job. Dr Monteith: Great, and so let's talk about intervention. What are things that, let's say, the neurologist can do to deal with some of these social factors? Dr Ifejika: From the neurology perspective, I think it's really important to identify missed opportunities and making sure that we address them. For example, the conversations around the ability to have access to care related to insurance versus no insurance. There are many, many ways that neurologists are able to advocate for a person being able to get to Medicare insurance, particularly in the outpatient setting. When we see patients in clinic, it takes two years, them, to qualify for Medicare, two years at a minimum. But there's a gap there that can be filled by us making sure that we document what's happened, contact their providers, facilitate communication with their employers, if they're employees, they can get some short-term disability benefits to help bridge that gap prior to receiving Medicare insurance. It behooves us to do this because if we do not, they fall into the gap and they get readmitted and they're back on service anyway. So, what's important is the outpatient that we really kind of focus on things that we can impact and things like insurance and getting people transitioned from having employer-based insurance versus getting to Medicare is a really important way that we can effect change in a, in a way that's viable and, and replicable. So, in the outpatient setting, neurologists have a wonderful opportunity to effect change in social determinants of health. When it comes to employed persons, who had a stroke transitioning to Medicare, it takes two years to do so. So, in the outpatient clinic, if you have an employed person, make sure that you fill out their short-term disability benefits forms, their long-term disability benefits form. Bridge the gap. Get that information to their employer so they can maintain constant coverage. Because if they do not, if they have to choose between refilling medications and putting food on the table, they're going to choose putting food on the table, and that's going to directly impact their outcomes if they're not taking the medication that we recommend. Dr Monteith: I think that's a great point. I mean, there's a lot that we can do, and in some ways, it may not take that much to document and to be able to ask the questions and to include some of that information into the assessment and plan is really a, a great idea. Dr Ifejika: And you know, if we don't bring these things up and have these conversations, it doesn't get addressed. And that's why I'm very, very thankful that I had the opportunity to do so, cause this is a part of what I do all day. I think that if I wasn't integrating these kind of conversations into my practice, I wouldn't have the ability to share these tips and these abilities to move things forward in a manner that will be constructive for our field overall and for our patients. Dr Monteith: And towards the end of the article, you brought up something I think we don't see in many articles, and that's the role of advocacy and getting involved in health policy. So, can you talk a little bit about that? Dr Ifejika: You know, it's really important to facilitate change when you see that there are things that need to be changed. And the best way to do that is through advocacy at the local or state or federal level. A lot of these variables that we're dealing with can be addressed through legal changes. I'll give you an example. End-stage renal disease, if you have immediate hemodialysis and you have that requirement upon hospital discharge, you qualify for Medicare immediately. Immediately. Before you even leave the hospital. Why wouldn't something be similar for a stroke? Well, the reason why is because there was a level of advocacy that came around end-stage renal disease and a member of Congress's wife had hemodialysis requirements. And so, a law was passed to make sure Medicare covered it immediately after hospital discharge. So, it requires advocacy in some significant ways to get things done, but we have the bandwidth to do this. We take care of a population that has some of the highest rates of preventable disability. That's not going away. We need to make sure that we're effecting change for this group to make sure that they have the best possible outcomes they can experience. Dr Monteith: So, any final messages for our listeners? Dr Ifejika: I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback about our issue. I am thankful for the opportunity to talk about, address, and write about this important topic, and look forward to everyone's feedback. Dr Monteith: Well, thank you so much for being on our podcast. It was a really wonderful summary and we had a very thorough conversation, but you didn't give away too much, so I think they're going to have to read the article. Dr Ifejika: You're going to have to read the article. And we want medical students, residents, fellows, faculty, all of our ancillary staff within the hospitals, please read this article. We really appreciate it. Dr Monteith: Again today, I've been interviewing Dr. Nneka Ifejika about her article on social determinants of health and their impacts on stroke prevention and outcomes. This article appears in the June 2026 Continuum issue on cerebrovascular disease. Be sure to check out Continuum Audio episodes from this and other issues. And thank you to our listeners for joining today. Dr Monteith: This is Dr. Teshamae Monteith, Associate Editor of Continuum Audio. If you've enjoyed this episode, you'll love the journal, which is full of in-depth and clinically relevant information important for neurology practitioners. Use the link in the episode notes to learn more and subscribe. AAN members, you can get CME for listening to this interview by completing the evaluation at continpub.com/audioCME. Thank you for listening to Continuum Audio.
Send us Fan MailWhat makes you you?Is it your memories? Your personality? Your sense of humor? Your motivation? What happens when a neurological disease changes one of those things?In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with neurologist, neuroscientist, and author Dr. Masud Husain about his new book, Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist's Patients Taught Him About the Brain.Drawing on the stories of seven patients with different neurological conditions, Dr. Husain explores how changes in the brain can profoundly affect identity, behavior, memory, motivation, humor, and our relationships with others.We discuss pathological apathy after stroke, personality changes caused by frontotemporal dementia, memory and Alzheimer's disease, the neurological basis of humor, and how cultural and spiritual beliefs shape the way people understand illness. We also explore bigger questions about free will, responsibility, consciousness, and whether there may be aspects of human experience that lie beyond a purely biological explanation.Dr. Husain shares what decades of caring for patients with neurological disorders have taught him about the brain—and about what it means to be human.Dr. Masud Husain is Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at New College, Oxford. His work spans neurology, neuroscience, psychology, and brain imaging, with a focus on understanding how the brain supports cognition in both healthy individuals and people with neurological disorders. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Brain, one of the world's leading and most influential neurology journals. Our Brains, Our Selves is his first book.Work with me? Perhaps we are a good match. Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener SupportYou can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Eeks on Instagram here.Follow Public Health is WeirdOr Facebook here.On Youtube.Or TikTok.SUBSCRIBE to her Newsletter here! (the bits not posted on socia media)Support the showSupport the show
In this episode, we review the high-yield topic of Brainstem from the Neurology section.Follow Medbullets on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/medbulletsInstagram: www.instagram.com/medbulletsofficialTwitter: www.twitter.com/medbullets
Seeking Balance: Neuroplasticity, Brain Health and Wellbeing
Joey Remenyi talks with Shannon Presson about the unexpected stories that shape our lives and impact our symptoms. Our bodies hold stories—are we listening and tuning in to them? What changes when you build the skills to connect with your body and your internal stories? Learn more about Joey at https://www.seekingbalance.com.au Learn about Shannon here: https://theunexpectedstory.com
Dr. Shuvro Roy talks with Dr. Amanda L. Piquet about the efficacy and safety of miv-cel in patients with stiff person syndrome. Read more about this abstract on the AAN website. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
This week, our coverage of the Consortium of MS Centers annual meeting continues with my guest, Dr. Stephen Krieger. In a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Krieger offers a very encouraging clinical trial update, shares his thoughts on what treating someone living with advanced MS ought to look like, and points out potential obstacles to implementing the updated criteria for diagnosing MS. Dr. Krieger is a Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and a Multiple Sclerosis Specialist at the Corinne Coldsmith Dickinson Center for MS. We're also sharing results of a study that revealed some surprising connections between caffeine, alcohol, opioids, and MS symptoms. And if you're living with MS and you're the parent of a young child, we'll tell you about a book that belongs on your bookshelf. We have a lot to talk about! Are you ready for RealTalk MS??! This Week: We're at the CMSC annual meeting with Dr. Stephen Krieger :22 Study reveals the connection between caffeine, alcohol, and opioids and your MS symptoms 1:12 My Superhero with Wheels is the book you need if you're living with MS and have young children 5:15 Dr. Stephen Krieger discusses exciting clinical trial results, treating people with advanced MS, and potential challenges in implementing the updated criteria for diagnosing MS 8:39 Share this episode 30:22 Next week 30:41 SHARE THIS EPISODE OF REALTALK MS Just copy this link & paste it into your text or email: https://realtalkms.com/458 ADD YOUR VOICE TO THE CONVERSATION I've always thought about the RealTalk MS podcast as a conversation. And this is your opportunity to join the conversation by sharing your feedback, questions, and suggestions for topics that we can discuss in future podcast episodes. Please shoot me an email or call the RealTalk MS Listener Hotline and share your thoughts! Email: jon@realtalkms.com Phone: (310) 526-2283 And don't forget to join us in the RealTalk MS Facebook group! LINKS If your podcast app doesn't allow you to click on these links, you'll find them in the show notes at www.RealTalkMS.com STUDY: Daily Temporal Associations Between Psychoactive Substances and Fatigue, Pain, Stress, and Depressive Symptoms in People with Multiple Sclerosis https://archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(26)00035-3/fulltext BOOK: My Superhero with Wheels https://amazon.com/My-Superhero-wheels-True-Story/dp/B0GWVGSWX5/ref=sr_1_1 JOIN: The RealTalk MS Facebook Group https://facebook.com/groups/realtalkms REVIEW: Give RealTalk MS a rating and review http://www.realtalkms.com/review Follow RealTalk MS on X, @RealTalkMS_jon, and subscribe to our newsletter at our website, RealTalkMS.com. RealTalk MS Episode 458 Guest: Dr. Stephen Krieger Privacy Policy
In this episode, we review the high-yield topic of Syringomyelia from the Neurology section.Follow Medbullets on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/medbulletsInstagram: www.instagram.com/medbulletsofficialTwitter: www.twitter.com/medbullets
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) was developed as a targeted, adjustable therapy for movement disorders to improve earlier hard-to-control procedures. Victor Sung, M.D., discusses how UAB began performing DBS in 1997 and built one of the nation's highest-volume programs, now performing six surgeries a week. Learn how advances such as directional stimulation, brain-sensing devices, and remote programming are shaping care, and how DBS plays an important role in the future of UAB's Movement Disorders Division.
In this episode, we review the high-yield topic of Wernicke Korsakoff Syndrome from the Neurology section.Follow Medbullets on social media:Facebook: www.facebook.com/medbulletsInstagram: www.instagram.com/medbulletsofficialTwitter: www.twitter.com/medbullets
In part two of this series, Dr. Andy Southerland and Dr. Dan Ackerman discuss a few rapid‑fire concepts from the 2026 guidelines, focusing on what is new and how emerging data may shape patient care. Show transcript: Dr. Andy Southerland: Hello, everyone. This is Andy Southerland from the University of Virginia. And for today's Neurology Minute, I'm speaking with my friend and colleague, Dan Ackerman, Chief of Neurology and Director of Stroke at St. Luke's University Health System. We've been speaking in the main neurology podcast on tips for updated clinical practice related to the 2026 American Heart Association guidelines for the early management of patients with acute ischemic stroke. I'm going to hit Dan with a few rapid fire concepts that were touched on the guidelines that I think are new or provide some new insights, new based on the data and to how we treat patients. So Dan, you ready for it? Rapid fire, acute stroke treatment decision making? Dr. Dan Ackerman: Absolutely. Hit me. Dr. Andy Southerland: All right, Dan. I'm a resident going to my first stroke alert on July one this year and I've got a patient coming in, they're having disabling stroke symptoms and they're, in every other way, eligible to receive thrombolysis, but they have a history of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. They are on apixaban and they took a dose of that apixaban. They forgot to take one yesterday, but they took one the day before, had the evening before. And so 36 hours ago, they took a dose of their apixaban. So based on previous dogma, I think prior guidelines might've said if it's within that 48 hour window, that's a relative contraindication of thrombolysis. What, say, you based on the new guidelines and then how do they inform us about making that decision? Dr. Dan Ackerman: I would actually say the new guidelines are a little bit more aligned with what you just said. You mentioned it as a relative contraindication to thrombolysis. I think before these guidelines came out, a lot of people would've said, "No, that is a strict contraindication to thrombolysis." And a lot of folks would run a stroke code or a stroke lid a little slower knowing that, hey, this person is on, whether it's apixaban, rivaroxaban, edoxaban, dabigatran, et cetera, any of these direct oral anticoagulants and say, "Well, no, we know that person's not a candidate for thrombolytics." Well, no, the newer guidelines would suggest that that is a relative contraindication, not a strict contraindication. And when we look back at studies on this, it has not been suggested that there is a big contribution in terms of exactly how long ago that last dose was. Was it two hours ago, 12 hours ago, 20 hours ago? And there has not been shown to be a clear benefit of testing for factor Xa activity levels, bleeding time and the like. So the guidelines do suggest that, hey, we need more data on this. It's not to, say, that this is 100% perfectly fine. Remember, that's a relative contraindication, so it's still a risk benefit discussion, but studies have not shown an increased risk for hemorrhagic complications in patients who have had recent DOAC exposure who receive IV thrombolysis otherwise according to the guidelines. So I would tend to offer it in that situation and make sure that we document what drugs someone's on, how long ago was their last dose, all of this kind of information in addition to what we might normally otherwise get down. Dr. Andy Southerland: Does that change, Dan, if they took the DOAC in the last 24 hours or even 12 hours? They took it last night, and they're presenting in the morning with their stroke-like symptoms? Dr. Dan Ackerman: The guideline just suggests less than 48 hours, and the data, to my knowledge, doesn't really delineate, at this point, any particular timeframe where we would say, no, there's a cutoff there at two hours or eight hours or 12 hours. So at this point, I would not use that as a way to decide not to offer thrombolysis based on that timeframe. Dr. Andy Southerland: Fair enough. I think that's very reasonable. And I think, again, it's always a good conversation to have either with your attending, if you're that resident on July 1, but particularly with the patient and their family on the risk-benefit of what we know based on the data. Well, that's all the time we have for this Neurology Minute. We hope this discussion will continue to help everyone out there in the hyperacute management of patients with acute ischemic stroke, making those difficult treatment decisions. Good luck.
In part two of this series, Dr. Andy Southerland talks with Dr. Dan Ackerman about a few rapid‑fire concepts from the 2026 guidelines, focusing on what is new and how emerging data may shape patient care. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.
In part one of this series, Dr. Andy Southerland and Dr. Dan Ackerman discuss what stands out in the latest thrombolysis guidelines, how these decisions are applied in stroke center practice, and how to educate residents and fellows on incorporating new evidence into treatment choices. Show transcript: Dr. Andy Southerland: Hi. This is Andy Southerland from the University of Virginia, and for today's Neurology Minute, I'm speaking with my friend and colleague, Dan Ackerman, Chief of Neurology and Director of Stroke at St. Luke's University Health System. I've been speaking with Dan on the main neurology podcast regarding updates to acute stroke treatment related to the 2026 American Heart Association guidelines that came out in late January of this year on the early management of patients with acute ischemic stroke. For our episode today, we might focus our discussion around thrombolytic therapy thrombolysis, which is at the core of what we do as acute stroke neurologists when it comes to treatment decision-making. So maybe as a first prompt, Dan, when you look at these guidelines, what stands out to you as you're thinking about how you practice, how you all are practicing at your stroke center, and then specifically how we educate our residents, our fellows on what they need to know, particularly the newness of it when it comes to making thrombolysis treatment decisions? Dr. Dan Ackerman: With all the discussions we've had in the past, there have been a lot of specifics about certain studies and how they might affect practice, but this guideline really opened up a lot and gave us an opportunity to do things in a way that makes really good clinical sense and really brings a lot of practices that have now become common at some centers into the fore so that we can get that information out to everyone and make sure everyone has that same really high level of stroke care everywhere they go. I think the first thing that stands out to me is what did not change. And want to reinforce that, particularly for people who are just getting into this, stroke alert is a screening tool, not a severity score. It's not like an MI alert where you do an EKG and you see the tombstone wave and you say, "Oh, there's an MI and we're taking them to treatment." This is a screening tool, so it is meant to be highly sensitive at the cost of being specific. At our shop for a long time now, we have initiated stroke alert for anyone who presents either within 24 hours of acute onset of neurologic symptoms or has an unknown onset of acute neurologic symptoms and they are still symptomatic to some degree at the time of their presentation, and that's it. We don't make any other statements about how severe something is or what kinds of symptoms someone necessarily has to have. We purposely keep it as broad as possible, again, because we're trying to screen. And the other thing that has not changed, time is still brain. So with all of these different nuances on how we can treat patients and who might be candidates for intervention, it is still a matter of understanding these guidelines, applying our best evidence, but doing it as quickly as possible to make sure that we are rescuing as much of that ischemic penumbra as we possibly can. Now, aside from that, in terms of what stands out that is different, I think one of the early things for me are the recommendations for extended time window for IV thrombolysis. So when you look at the original studies, we understand that when you get out beyond four and a half hours, if you just take all-comers, the risk is going to start to outweigh the benefit. But that doesn't mean there's zero benefit or that no one would receive benefit, but it's a question of, well, how do we cherry-pick those patients who may still receive benefit? And there are a few real specifics in the guideline that help us figure that out. One is for patients who have an unknown time of onset, but they're within four and a half hours of symptom discovery. And for those patients, they would suggest that doing a stat MRI and comparing a DWI lesion with the corresponding area flare to determine if you see DWI hyper-intensity and the flare image is nice and normal, that would suggest that stroke is young enough that it may still be appropriate to treat that patient. But we would also say for folks who have salvageable ischemic penumbra, so again, brain at risk that is not core yet, who either awoke with stroke symptoms within nine hours from the midpoint of sleep or, and this is the kicker, are within four and a half to nine hours from last known well. So in other words, they may have been symptomatic already for more than four and a half hours. If those patients have an appropriate ischemic penumbra, it may be reasonable to treat them with IV thrombolysis to improve functional outcomes. Dr. Andy Southerland: Well, that's all for this Neurology Minute. We hope this vibrant conversation will help all those who are out looking to make the best treatment decisions for their patients, both based on established evidence and most recent evidence in our new guidelines.