Barbara Kelly Changizi

Biography

Barbara Kelly Changizi, MD, is Assistant Professor of Neurology and Co-Director for the Center for Neuromodulation at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Changizi sees patients in the Robert and John M. Bendheim Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center, and currently sees patients with all varieties of movement disorders, including Parkinson disease, Parkinsonian syndromes, tremor (essential tremor, multiple sclerosis tremor, among others), dystonia, ataxia, restless leg syndrome, myoclonus, and hemifacial spasm. She is an expert both in deep brain stimulation (see below), as well as botulinum toxin administration.

Dr. Changizi co-directs the Center for Neuromodulation with neurosurgeon Dr. Brian Kopell. Dr. Kopell has performed over 400 cases of deep brain stimulation (DBS), and is a well-published and highly-regarded surgeon in the field. Dr. Changizi’s role as co-director is to evaluate patient candidacy for DBS, optimize their medical management prior to their surgery, and perform programming of the devices after their leads are implanted. Her philosophy is to educate patients throughout their DBS candidacy, so as to make the process of surgery and maintenance of their implant as comfortable and optimal as possible.

Dr. Changizi also educates movement disorder fellows and neurology residents. She participates in her own research on DBS, as well as acts as co-investigator in several national multi-center studies. She has initiated several patient advocacy groups, and leads the Mount Sinai APDA Parkinson Support Group (see tab), and the Mount Sinai Essential Tremor Support Group (see tab). She has directed and spoken at several continuing medical education (CME) events at Mount Sinai (see tab) to educate physicians on movement disorders and neuromodulation, as she strongly feels that outcomes for patient who struggle with movement disorders correlates with their physician knowledge of the most up-to-date practices.

Publications

Changizi, BK, Alterman R, and Cho, C. Deep brain stimulation of the globus pallidus internal segment provides sustained benefit of parkinsonism in multiple system atrophy [in process].

Changizi BK. Parkinson disease and related disorders. In: Mount Sinai Expert Guides: Neurology. Sealfon S, Motiwala R, Stacy C. Wiley-Blackwell, NY, [in process, expected 2013].

Changizi BK, Subramony SH, Uschmann H. Evaluation of Ataxia. BMJ Point of Care, November 2012.

Changizi BK, Alterman R, Cheung T, Ngy D, and Cho C. Deep brain stimulation of the globus pallidus internus improves parkinsonian features of multiple system atrophy. Annual meeting of the Movement Disorders Society June 2012.

Barba AL, Changizi BK, Higgins DS, Factor SA, Molho ES. Dementia. In: Parkinson’s Disease. 2nd Edition. Pfeiffer RF, Wszolek Zbigniew K, Ebadi M, eds. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. July 2011.

Marawar R, Wang H, Changizi B. Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy and Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura. Annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology April 2010; poster 06.127.

Changizi BK, Molho ES. Three cases of pathologic gambling in patients prescribed dopamine agonists for restless leg syndrome. 12th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Abstracts June 2008.

Liebeskind DS, Kim D, Starkman S, Changizi K, Ohanian AG, Jahan R, Vinuela F. Collateral failure? Late mechanical thrombectomy after failed intravenous thrombolysis. Journal of Neuroimaging 2008; [epub ahead of print].

Puranam RS, Jain S, Kleindienst AM, Saxena S, Kim MK, Changizi BK, Padma MV, Andrews I, Elston RC, Tiwari HK, and McNamara JO. A locus for generalized tonic-clonic seizure susceptibility maps to chromosome 10q25-q26. Annals of Neurology 2005; 58(3):449-458.

Cherniak C, Mokhtarzada Z, Rodriguez-Esteban R, and Changizi K. Global optimization of cerebral cortex layout. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2004; 101(4):1081-1086.

Erickson C, Changizi BK, and Desimone R. Experience-dependent alterations in neuronal activity in perirhinal cortex of rhesus monkeys. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 1998; 23:1508.

Erickson C, Changizi B, and Desimone R. Responses of inferior temporal neurons during implicit association learning in the rhesus monkey. Program and Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 1997; No. 11.