UF Neurology Faculty and Trainees Present Research at 2026 AAN Annual Meeting!
The University of Florida Department of Neurology was well represented at the 2026 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting, held April 18-22 in Chicago. Faculty, fellows, residents, and trainees presented more than 30 posters, led invited courses and seminars, and received national awards over the course of the five-day meeting.
The AAN Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of neurologists in the world, drawing tens of thousands of clinicians, researchers, and trainees each year. It serves as the primary venue for presenting new research, sharing advances in clinical care, and shaping the direction of the field.
Amplifying UF Research
UF Neurology’s poster presentations spanned nearly every major area of the field, with faculty, fellows, and trainees presenting original research in movement disorders, deep brain stimulation, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, stroke, traumatic brain injury, dementia, neuromuscular disease, and quality improvement.
Several presentations focused on advances in deep brain stimulation – an area where UF has built significant expertise through the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases. Joshua Wong, Coralie De Hemptinne, and Jackson Cagle, along with their trainees and collaborators, presented work on gamma oscillation modulation, automated surgical prediction tools, electrode identification for DBS programming, stimulation artifact characterization, and local field potential recordings in dystonia. Nur Walker-Pizarro, Michael Okun, and Adolfo Ramirez-Zamora presented on swallowing outcomes after DBS for dystonia.
In Parkinson’s disease research, Irene Malaty and international collaborators presented two posters from the real-world ROSSINI study examining foslevodopa/foscarbidopa in advanced Parkinson’s disease, including its effects on motor fluctuations and pain. Malaty, along with Mark McFarland and Heather Martin, also presented work on improving hospitalization safety for Parkinson’s patients by reducing the use of contraindicated medications. Veronica Ferrer and Joshua Wong presented research on motor symptom localization profiles to track disease progression, and A. Enrique Martinez Nunez and Wong presented on predicting REM sleep behavior disorder in early Parkinson’s disease using resting-state fMRI.
In dementia and behavioral neurology, Gregory Pontone and colleagues presented a quality improvement initiative to enhance early Alzheimer’s disease detection, and Anastasia Barnes, Melissa Armstrong, and colleagues presented research on apathy in dementia with Lewy bodies and its impact on patients and caregivers.
UF’s stroke and traumatic brain injury research included work by Rory Weston, Ivan Da Silva, and colleagues on the incidence and mechanisms of blunt cerebrovascular injury in moderate to severe TBI, and Sebastian Edwards, Torge Rempe, and Teng Peng on granulomatous disease manifesting as hemorrhagic stroke. Amita Singh, Christina Wilson, and colleagues presented a comparison of swallow screening protocols.
In epilepsy, Stephen Klaus, Maria Bruzzone Giraldez, and Abbas Babajani presented MEG-based research in pre-surgical temporal lobe epilepsy, Subeikshanan Venkatesan presented on visual evoked responses in photosensitive epilepsy, and Vishwatha Hari Baskar presented a systematic review on cefepime-associated neurotoxicity.
Neuromuscular disease presentations included work by William Remley, Bhavin Patel, and colleagues on CIDP and POEMS syndrome, Jennifer Argudo, S. Subramony, and colleagues on blood pressure patterns in myotonic dystrophy, and Rachael Burke, Patricia Graese, Irene Malaty, and colleagues on sensory sensitivities in Tourette syndrome.
Congratulations to all on a job well done!