Anthony E Lang, OC, MD, FRCPC, FAAN, FCAHS, FRSC

Solving the 'Parkinson Puzzle'

Our research studies are conducted in the Edmond J. Safra Program in Parkinson’s Disease and the Morton and Gloria Shulman Movement Disorders Clinic with important support through the Lily Safra Chair in Movement Disorders.

We are involved in a large number of clinical research trials including pharmacologic studies evaluating a number of drugs at various stages of Parkinson's disease. Several of these trials are in collaboration with the Parkinson Study Group.

The Toronto Western Hospital Movement Disorders Program remains a world leader in the surgical management of Parkinson's disease including the evaluation of deep brain stimulation in novel sites or for new indications and the use of MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound.

Collaborators in the surgical arm of the program include Drs. Alfonso Fasano and Renato Munhoz in neurology and  Drs. Andres Lozano, Mojgan Hodaie, Suneil Kalia and Bill Hutchison in neurosurgery.

Neuropsychological and imaging evaluations of patients participating in these studies represent an important component of our collaborative research. Additional neurophysiologic studies in surgical patients as well as in other movement disorders are carried out by Dr. Robert Chen.

Clinical trials are very active in the program. Dr. Susan Fox directs a program in clinical neuropharmacology and early proof of principle studies. Dr. Connie Marras conducts clinical epidemiological studies including evaluating families with genetic forms of various movement disorders and assessing risk factors that could contribute to diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.  

We have recently developed a specialty clinic in the ataxias directed by Drs. Elizabeth Slow and Renato Munhoz.

Neuroimaging is an important component of our program and Dr. Antonio Strafella directs a very active functional imaging research program using positron emission tomography and functional MRI.

Molecular and cell biology and clinical genetics of movement disorders including Parkinson's disease are areas of expanding interest in collaboration with Drs. Peter St George-Hyslop, Ekaterina Rogaeva and Lorraine Kalia.

Finally, we are actively collaborating with Dr. Jonathan Brotchie's laboratory in the study of animal models of movement disorders, particularly levodopa-induced dyskinesias.

This broad-based research program is directed at attempting to solve the 'Parkinson puzzle' at many levels including attempts at understanding the cause(s), improving the accuracy of diagnosis preventing/slowing the progression and treating the later stages more effectively.