Mahlon DeLong
Mahlon R. DeLong is an American neurologist and professor at the Medical School of Emory University. He succeeded in attaining major progress in the research and treatment of Parkinson's disease, dystonia, tremor and other neurological movement disorders.
DeLong attended Harvard Medical School (MA 1966), completed his internship at Boston City Hospital and his residency training ( residency ) at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore with the professional doctorate (MD) in 1976. Between, he was in 1971 at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda. He received his license in 1980 as a neurologist and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University. From 1990 he was at Emory University, where he is William Patterson Timmie Professor of Neurology since 1993. He is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiative.
In 1971, he identified with Russell T. Richardson in experiments with monkeys first groups of neurons ( nucleus basalis ), which are involved in the pathogenesis conditioned learning and they revealed the role played by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine it. After the release of acetylcholine from the basal ganglia results in large areas of the neocortex to lighter stimulation of neurons in the neocortex and an easier training of the neural network connections.
DeLong was a pioneer in the development of deep brain stimulation ( deep brain stimulation, DBS ). Patients with advanced stage Parkinson's and other movement disorders Here, electrodes are selected in deeper areas of the brain ( the basal ganglia in Parkinson's to ) implanted and this stimulated externally as cardiac pacemakers or modulate their function. The process was first used in Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, but then also expanded, for example, to mental disorders such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome.
In 2014 he received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for the description of the disturbed circuits in Parkinson's disease and thus the creation of the foundations of deep brain stimulation.
He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. DeLong received the Fred Springer Award from the American Parkinson 's Disease Foundation and held the Schneider Lecture of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (1999).
Writings
- With RT Richardson Electro Physiological studies of the function of the nucleus basalis in primates. In TC Napier P. Kalivias, I. Hamin (Editor), The basal forebrain: Anatomy to Function, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Volume 295, 1991, pp. 232-252
- With RT Richardson Functional implications of tonic and phasic activity changes in nucleus basalis neurons in RT Richardson (Ed.) Activation To Acquisition: Functional Aspects Of The basal forebrain Cholinergic System, Birkhauser, 1991, pp. 135-166
- GE Alexander, MD Crutcher, SJ Mitchell, RT Richardson Role of basal ganglia in limb movements, Human Neurobiology, Volume 2, 1984, pp. 235-244
- Motor subcircuits Mediating the Control of Movement Velocity: A PET Study, Journal of Neurophysiology, Volume 80, 1998, pp. 2162-2178
- Neuronal Activity in the Basal Ganglia in Patients with Generalized Dystonia and Hemiballimus, Annals of Neurology, Volume 46, 1999, pp. 22-35
- Reversal of experimental Parkinsonism by Lesions of the subthalamic nucleus, Science, Volume 249, 1990, pp. 1436-1438
- Published by Ann M. Graybiel, Stephen T. Kitai Basal Ganglia VI, Kluwer 2003 ( 6th International Basal Ganglia Symposium, Brewster / Massachusetts 1998)
- Publisher with noriichi Mano, Ikuma Hamada: Role of the cerebellum and basal ganglia in voluntary movement: proceedings of the 8th Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience ( Tokyo 1992), Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica 1993