For our September session on the 25th, we will be hosting Colin Hoy and Andrea Kühn.

Colin Hoy, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar in Neurology and the School of Medicine, UCSF. His research, for which he won the DBS Think Tank rising star challenge in 2023, focuses on the neural mechanisms of reward learning and decision making and their role in psychiatric symptoms like depression, anxiety, and apathy in Parkinson’s disease. With a background in studying cognition, learning and emotions using scalp EEG, he works on the interface of clinical neuromodulation & brain control interfaces. His current work uses chronic intracranial recordings during longitudinal, at-home behavioral assessments to understand how deep brain stimulation and dopaminergic therapies for motor symptoms affect cognition and emotion. The title of his talk will be “Fronto-basal ganglia mechanisms of goal-directed behavior in Parkinson’s disease: From basic science to clinical insights”.

Andrea Kühn, MD, PhD, is a professor for neurology since 2007 and head of the movement disorders and neuromodulation unit at the dept. of Neurology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin since 2016. She is a monumental figure in the field of neuromodulation, being one of the pioneering scientisits to establish the role of beta power as a biomarker in Parkinson’s disease. Her research is focused on the pathophysiology of movement disorders (Parkinson’s disease, dystonia) and the mechanisms of action of deep brain stimulation in movement disorders. She uses invasive recordings from the human basal ganglia to study cortico-basal ganglia network function and the role of neuronal oscillatory activity aiming at optimizing. The title of her talk will be “Adaptive deep brain stimulation – pathophysiological principles and clinical experience.”