MDS Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Junior Awardee: Can cortical signals tell us what is happening in the deep brain? | Congress 2026 Sep 23, 2026

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In this episode, we speak with Zixiao Yin, recipient of a Junior Award at the MDS Congress, about his work on reconstructing deep brain activity from cortical signals. Using more than 700 hours of simultaneous cortical and subcortical recordings across different movement disorders, brain targets, and clinical states, Yin and colleagues developed deep learning approaches to infer subcortical activity from cortical recordings. We discuss why this could matter for adaptive DBS, how cortical signals can be used to estimate STN beta activity and reconstruct deep brain signals, and whether this approach could provide an alternative when direct subcortical sensing is unreliable.

Long-Term Follow-Up of Patients with Mass Social Media-Induced Illness Presenting with Functional Tic-like Behaviors Mar 09, 2026

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In this episode, Dr. Kirsten Müller-Vahl explores one of the first long-term follow-up studies of mass social media–induced functional tic-like behaviors (MSMI-FTLB). She discusses what their findings mean for clinical counseling, why early diagnosis appears to improve outcomes, how factors such as psychiatric comorbidity and secondary gain influence recovery. She also examines the surprising finding that reduced screen time did not significantly affect prognosis and what this suggests about social media as a trigger versus a maintaining factor. Read the article.

Junior Awardee: Identifying a subthalamic nucleus cell subtype responsible for motor benefit in a Parkinsonian mouse model | Congress 2025 Sep 29, 2025

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Dr. Mitra Afshari chats with Dr. Jung Hawn Shin, one of this year’s MDS Congress Junior Awardees. Together they discuss his career path and what lead him to studying, and ultimately deciphering specific neuronal cell-types within the subthalamic nucleus (STN) that could be responsible for anti-parkinsonian motor benefits, and potentially non-motor side effects, of stimulation using optogenetic technology in Parkinsonian mice.

Junior Awardee: Mitochondrial and oligodendrocytic processes in MSA | Congress 2025 Sep 29, 2025

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Dr. Eduardo de Pablo-Fernández interviews one of the 2025 Junior Awardees, Dr. Lydia Chougar about her work combining neuroimaging with transcriptomics and PET maps to elucidate the biological underpinnings of structural abnormalities in multiple system atrophy.

Junior Awardee - SAA development for the differentiation of progressive supranuclear palsy and Parkinson's disease | Congress 2024 Sep 23, 2024

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Dr. Edwin Jabbari, a 2024 MDS Junior Award Winner, joins the MDS Podcast to share the results of his award-winning work on the development of a 4-repeat tau SAA and what led him to this work. He also shares helpful tips for other junior researchers.

Junior Awardee - Understanding the optimal brain fingerprint to improve DBS outcomes in Parkinson's disease | Congress 2024 Sep 23, 2024

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Dr. Bahne Bahners, a 2024 MDS Junior Award Winner, discusses the path that led him to his chosen research topic and award. He shares the results of this novel investigation that studies the electrophysiological fingerprint of STN DBS clinical outcomes using local field potential and magnetoencephalography recordings.

Long-term follow up of GPi-DBS in pediatric non-degenerative dystonia Aug 19, 2024

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Dr. Sarah Camargos interviews Dr. Giovanna Zorzi on the outcomes of a cohort of non-degenerative pediatric patients with idiopathic and genetic dystonia who were submitted to GPi-DBS and compares these outcomes with a meta-analysis of the literature.
Journal CME is available until July 24, 2025 Read the article.

Lixisenatide in Parkinson's: A Diabetes Drug to Slow Disease Progression? Jul 01, 2024

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Dr. Michele Matarazzo interviews Dr. Olivier Rascol on the results of the clinical trial recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Tune in to learn about the mechanisms of action and potential of lixisenatide and other GLP-1 receptor agonists in impacting the progression of Parkinson's disease. Read the article »

Local fields potentials can help DBS programming in Parkinson's disease in clinical practice Jan 29, 2024

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Dr. Michele Matarazzo interviews Prof. Andrea Kühn on her recently published article showing the potential of local fields potentials to help the programming of deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson's disease. Read the article

Late-stage Parkinsonism: Do we know enough? Jul 08, 2020

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Dr. Michele Matarazzo interviews Dr. Anette Schrag about the recently published article on late-stage parkinsonism and related neuropsychiatric complications. Why is it important? And are we doing enough to help patients at this stage? Read the article

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