Cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease: the role of the hippocampus

Lecture overview

The objectives of this talk are to help the attendee become familiar with the Lewy body related dementias, Parkinson’s disease dementia and Dementia with Lewy bodies. The talk provides a brief discussion of the associated pathological features of both disorders and treatments based on current evidence. The concept of mild cognitive impairment in PD will be introduced and a new research project using fMRI to better understand the potential role of functional hippocampal sub-regions in amnestic MCI in PD will be presented.

About A/Prof Gregory Pontone

Gregory Pontone, M.D., M.H.S. is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. After completing a medicine internship and residency training in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Pontone completed a two-year fellowship in geriatric psychiatry and movement disorders focusing on Parkinson’s disease through the Clinical Research Program of the Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Disease Research Center at Johns Hopkins. He also completed a fellowship in Clinical Trial Methods in Neurology sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. He is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and has an added certification in the specialty of geriatric psychiatry. He serves on the Scientific Review Committee and as the co-chair of the Cognitive/Psychiatric Working Group for an international consortium of Parkinson's disease researchers, the Parkinson Study Group. He is an associate editorial board member for the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

He is an Attending Psychiatrist in the Geriatric and Neuropsychiatry division where he treats patients with neurodegenerative disorders (including Parkinson’s disease and related disorders, Alzheimer’s dementia), and behavioral disturbances resulting from these diseases.  Dr. Pontone is the director of the Johns Hopkins Parkinson’s disease Neuropsychiatry Clinic, which focuses on diagnosing and treating the neuropsychiatric aspects of Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. His research focuses on the interaction between neuropsychiatric symptoms such as cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression and motor impairment in Parkinson’s disease.