Dr. David Perez, is a dual trained Neurologist-Psychiatrist and Cognitive-Affective Neuroscientist. He is an Associate Professor of Neurology & Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Clinically, Dr. Perez is the founding director of the Functional Neurological Disorder Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the director of the MGH FND Research Group.

Dr Perez talks about his early fascination with bringing brain and mind together in research and how this has energized him to create 'brain teams'. He advocates working across disciplines and across specialities to learn from and educate each other with the aim of creating precise and effective treatments for FND. Dr Perez gives advice on how to create a dream team for treating and researching FND and muses on the pscyhopathophysical signatures of FND.

It's an energized and energetic podcast and one sure to bring hope to patients and clinicians of all kinds interested in FND.

https://www.massgeneral.org/neurology/research/functional-neurology-research-group

https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/86553

The episode covers the FNDS Annual meeting which took place in early June in Verona Italy, including daily conference highlights, and interviews with several of the conference speakers. This was a multi-disciplinary conference bringing together leading international experts, from a range of backgrounds including neurology, physiatry, psychiatry, psychology, physical, occupational, and speech therapies. Special guest conversations were with Michael Dilley, Gaston Baslet, Dara Albert, Julie Maggio and Claire Nicholson.

Links:

FNDS 2024 Conference
Michael Dilley
Gaston Baslet
Dara V.F. Albert
Functional Neurology Research Group
Occupational Therapy – neurosymptoms.org

This episode includes discussion with Dr. Matthew Butler regarding his professional pathway and background to FND research and practice including a detour into philosophy and nerdy book recommendations, his parallel work as a trial doctor on psychedelics for other neuropsychiatric conditions and clinical work in FND, his upcoming trial of psilocybin in FND (https://www.psifund.co.uk/) and gender, diversity, & trauma as it relates to psychedelic use. Lastly we discuss his hopes for future studies and next steps.

Relevant Links:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/matt-butler

https://www.psifund.co.uk/