Think Neuro

Dr. Melita Petrossian is a fellowship-trained neurologist and movement disorders specialist and is the Director of the Pacific Movement Disorders Center located at Providence Saint John’s Health Center and Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance. Dr. Petrossian’s clinical interests and expertise are in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, tremors including essential tremors, dystonia, gait disorders, ataxia, myoclonus, blepharospasm, hemifacial spasm, Meige syndrome, spasticity, tics, and Tourette’s syndrome.

She also specializes in Parkinson’s-related conditions such as Dementia with Lewy Bodies, progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple system atrophy, corticobasal degeneration, primary freezing of gait, and Parkinson’s Disease Dementia.

Naveed Wagle, MD, has specialized training and research experience in the treatment of cancer of the central and peripheral nervous system. Dr. Wagle treats patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors as well as neurologic complications of cancer at Providence Saint John’s Health Center. As an expert resource to Pacific Neuroscience Institute and the community, Dr. Wagle brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in neuro-oncology clinical trials design and implementation. 

For more information: https://www.pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org/about-us/our-team/ | (310) 582-7640

Cervical dystonia (sometimes called neck dystonia) is the abnormal position of the muscles of the neck, causing a twisted, turned, flexed or extended neck position. Abnormal signals coming from the deep parts of the brain cause this condition and therefore it is not muscular in nature and will not resolve with muscle massage or stretching.

Join us in raising awareness to dystonia with Natalie Diaz, MD, board-certified neurologist with fellowship training in movement disorders at Pacific Neuroscience Institute. 

Strange though it may seem, we can tone our brain tissue the same way we tone our muscles. The fitness of our gray matter depends on how well we take care of ourselves. If we exercise, manage our stress, get plenty of sleep, and eat right, our brain function improves. We add more, better brain tissue. Dr. Jennifer Bramen and Dr. Karen Miller work as a team at the Pacific Brain Health Center to help people keep their brains fit, especially as we age. Dr. Bramen is a neuroscientist who specializes in brain imaging. Dr. Karen Miller is a geropsychologist and clinical neuropsychologist with three decades of experience dealing with aging brains. They work together to develop brain health lifestyle programs that combine physical exercise and brain training to stave of neurological decline in older adults and help people with healthy brains keep them that way. Listen to this podcast to learn how they combine their specialties to get results.

Dr. Omid B. Mehdizadeh, MD, is an Otolaryngology, and Head & Neck (ENT) surgeon. Working with colleagues in the Pacific Eye, Ear & Skull Base Center at Pacific Neuroscience Institute, his particular expertise is in voice, swallowing and throat conditions (laryngology). 

Visit Dr. Mehdizadeh's profile: https://www.pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org/people/omid-mehdizadeh/

PacificNeuro.org
310-582-7450

Dr. Barkhoudarian is the Co-Director Pituitary Disorders Center, Neurosurgery; Director, Adult Hydrocephalus Center; Director, Facial Pain Center; Chief, Radiosurgery Program; Director, Saint Johns Cancer Institute / PNI Microdissection Anatomy Laboratory. He is a board-certified, fellowship-trained neurosurgeon with a focus on skull base and minimally invasive endoscopic surgery. Dr. Barkhoudarian has particular interest and expertise in pituitary and parasellar tumors, brain tumors, skull-base tumors (including meningiomas, craniopharyngiomas, chordomas and schwannomas), intra-ventricular brain tumors, colloid cysts, trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm, and other vascular compression syndromes. 

For more information: https://www.pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org/people/garni-barkhoudarian/ | (310) 582-7640

The network of vessels that transport blood to your brain looks like two trees. The trunks are the carotid arteries, which run up through the neck and branch into the brain, getting smaller and smaller as they ascend. Sometimes, those branches develop a dangerous malformation called an aneurysm. It happens when the artery wall weakens and begins to bulge. An aneurysm often looks like a berry hanging from a branch. About one in 50 Americans will develop an aneurysm in their lifetime. The lucky ones will never know it. But in some patients, the aneurysm bursts like a balloon, and blood pours into the brain, damaging tissue, in an event commonly called a hemorrhagic stroke. Neurosurgeon Dr. Adi Iyer, knows his way around the branching arteries that feed our brains. He treats a variety of diseases there. When a hemorrhagic stroke patient comes into the hospital, he treats the ruptured artery as fast as he can because time lost is brain lost. Listen to this episode to learn how Dr. Iyer does it, and how he he can treat aneurysms before they burst.

Evan Walgama, MD is a board-certified Otolaryngologist – Head & Neck / ENT Surgeon at the Pacific Eye, Ear & Skull Base Center at Pacific Neuroscience Institute, Santa Monica. His particular area of expertise is in the treatment of patients with benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck.

Dr. Walgama is a dual-fellowship trained surgeon. He completed his Sinus and Skull Base fellowship at Stanford, followed by a Head and Neck Surgical Oncology fellowship at MD Anderson. He brings together both skillsets to treat challenging cancers of the ear, nose and throat, with a priority focus on preservation of quality of life for patients and their families.

As a leader of a multidisciplinary team, Dr. Walgama addresses a wide array of benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck, including thyroid, oral cavity, throat, HPV-related, and sinus/skull base. He is a champion of multidisciplinary care and patient-centered decision making, seeing patients at award-winning Providence hospitals – Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, and Little Company of Mary Medical Center, Torrance, California.

At Saint John’s Cancer Institute, Dr. Walgama’s research and academic interests include cost-effectiveness, clinical outcomes research, and clinical trials in head and neck oncology.  

Dr. Walgama is a member of the American Head & Neck Society, the North American Skull Base Society, and the American Academy Otolaryngology.

Karina Sergi is a licensed therapist, trained the old-fashioned way, but she is exploring a new tool that has been proven to help people who are struggling with persistent depression, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder: magic mushrooms. PNI is studying psilocybin, the active ingredient in mushrooms, as a treatment for alcohol use disorder, and Karina is a facilitator for the trial. She meets with patients before their psilocybin journeys, sits with them during the experience, then meets with them afterward to integrate the event into their daily lives. PNI founder Dr. Dan Kelly has said that psilocybin might be the most important compound for brain health that’s currently under study, and Karina agrees. She points out that magic mushrooms have been used by indigenous populations in Mexico for centuries, and she feels fortunate that the modern world has rediscovered them. Listen to this podcast to learn what a classically-trained therapist thinks about what has become a cutting-edge compound.

Dr. Natalie Diaz is a board-certified neurologist with fellowship training in movement disorders. Her clinical practice focuses on the evaluation and management of patients with Parkinson’s disease, atypical parkinsonian disorders, Huntington’s disease and other choreiform disorders, dystonia, and ataxia.

She also has specialized training in the evaluation and programming of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and dystonia as well as the therapeutic administration of botulinum toxin injections for non-cosmetic indications such as focal dystonia, hemifacial spasm and limb spasticity. Her research focuses on industry-sponsored clinical trials in Parkinson’s disease and other collaborative clinical projects in the field of neurodegenerative disorders.