2023 Brain Health Summit Program

Thank you for joining us at the American Academy of Neurology’s 2023 Brain Health Summit. Today professionals across disciplines come together to collaborate and take action on the top priorities in brain health. We are honored by your participation and look forward to a robust discussion.

TIME AGENDA

7:30 a.m. Registration and Breakfast

8:15 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks

The AAN Brain Health Initiative—Progress to Date and Summit Goals

• David A. Evans, MBA

• Natalia S. Rost, MD, MPH, FAAN, FAHA

8:45 a.m. Key Advances in Neuroscience and the Future of Optimal Brain Health For All

Walter J. Koroshetz, MD, FAAN

An Early Start to a Lifetime of Success—Fetal/Maternal Brain Health Today and Tomorrow

Moriah E. Thomason, PhD

The Economic Impact of Brain Health—From Numbers to Policy Change

Joseph Dieleman, PhD

9:30 a.m. Break and Networking Activity

9:50 a.m. Collaborative Models for Optimizing (and Paying for) Brain Health—Moderated Panel

• Susan Chung, PhD, WELL AP

• Harrison Hines, MD, MTS

• Shari M. Ling, MD

Open Forum

Moderator: David A. Evans, MBA

11:15 a.m. Break

• Patricia Loudis, MD

• Tatjana Rundek, MD, PhD

11:30 a.m. Breakout Session I: Brain Health in Action—Partners in Prevention

• Group A

Developing an Action Plan for Brain Health Research

• Group B

Addressing Education Needs in Brain Health

• Group C

Advocating for Public Policy Priorities in Brain Health

• Group D

Crafting Effective Direct-to-public Messaging for Brain Health

12:00 p.m. Discussion Recap and Open Forum

Breakout groups to report out one top priority from discussion

12:30 p.m. Lunch and Networking

TIME AGENDA

1:30 p.m. Brain Health—A Collaborative Vision for the Future

Bernadette Boden-Albala, MPH, DrPH

1:50 p.m. Special Announcement

• Orly Avitzur, MD, MBA, FAAN

• Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD, MS, FAAN

2:00 p.m.

Breakout Session II: Brain Health in Action— Living Well with Brain Disease

• Group A

Developing an Action Plan for Brain Health Research

• Group B

Addressing Education Needs in Brain Health

• Group C

Advocating for Public Policy Priorities in Brain Health

• Group D Crafting Effective Direct-to-public Messaging for Brain Health

2:30 p.m. Discussion Recap and Open Forum

Breakout groups to report out one top priority from discussion.

3:00 p.m. Summit Recap and Next Steps

• Natalia S. Rost, MD, MPH, FAAN, FAHA

• David A. Evans, MBA

3:30 p.m. Adjourn

BRAIN HEALTH

Our Program Leads

Carlayne E. Jackson, MD, FAAN, is president of the AAN and a professor of neurology and otolaryngology at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA), where she serves as chair of the Department of Neurology and holds the Edna Smith Dielmann Distinguished University Chair. Jackson serves as medical director for the South Texas ALSA Center of Excellence and the South Texas MDA Clinic. She is a member of the Western ALS Study Group, Northeast ALS Research Group, and the Muscle Study Group. She has participated in over 70 multicenter clinical trials in the areas of ALS, muscular dystrophy, and myasthenia gravis and has published over 260 abstracts, journal articles, and book chapters.

David A. Evans, MBA, is the chief executive officer of Texas Neurology, executive director of the Neurologix Foundation in Dallas, and a co-founder and CEO of NeuroNet GPO. He serves as chair of the AAN’s Committee on Public Engagement, chair of the AAN’s Health Policy Subcommittee, and is a member of the AAN’s Advocacy and Industry Relations Committees. He is immediate past chair of the AAN’s Practice Management & Technology Subcommittee and past chair of the BRAINS section of the AAN. Evans was the recipient of the 2022 AAN’s President’s Award.

Natalia S. Rost, MD, MPH, FAAN, FAHA, is president elect of the American Academy of Neurology, vice chair of the AAN’s Committee on Public Engagement and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, where she serves as stroke division chief at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She is internationally recognized for her expertise in vascular neurology, neuroimaging of cerebrovascular disease, and big data science applications to personalized outcome prediction in acute stroke. A clinician-scientist at the helm of an ambitious research program dedicated to reducing global burden of stroke-related disability and brain health, Rost is the MGH Research Scholar and principal investigator of DISCOVERY. She is former president of the Boston American Heart Association board, scientific chair of the 2022 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke ADRD Summit, and associate editor of Stroke.

Our Speakers

Orly Avitzur, MD, MBA, FAAN, is a practicing neurologist with offices in Tarrytown and Carmel, NY, and is the immediate past president of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). She is editor-in-chief of Brain & Life®, the AAN’s patient and caregiver magazine, website, and podcast. Avitzur is a medical writer and has written for Neurology Today®, the official news source of the AAN, since 2001, covering technology in clinical care; the evolution of the health care regulatory environment; the neurology pipeline; equity, diversity, and inclusion; and neurologists on the front line during the COVID-19 pandemic. For 10 years, Avitzur was a health editor for Consumer Reports and its medical director from 2015–2018. She is a clinical instructor at Yale University School of Medicine and a clinical assistant professor at New York Medical College.

Bernadette Boden-Albala, MPH, DrPH, is the director and founding dean of the University of California-Irvine Program in Public Health and the future School of Population and Public Health. She is a professor of health, society, and behavior and epidemiology and biostatistics at UC Irvine Public Health and also holds an appointment at the UC Irvine School of Medicine as a professor of neurology. Boden-Albala has dedicated her career to promoting health equity for all, defining, and intervening on social determinants of disease, and leading community-level health assessments and solutions. Additionally, she has expertise in cardiovascular disease and stroke, emerging infectious diseases, epidemiology, and global health.

Susan Chung, PhD, WELL AP, is a senior research program manager at HKS Architects. Leading enterprise programs for deep-dive research and development, she strives to enhance the synergies between research and design through communication and outreach. Chung’s experience in comprehensive workplace research studies in living laboratory settings speaks to her passion for translating research into action and advocacy for evidence-based and outcomedriven design practices. Her scholarly research is focused on creative performance and its relationship with physical and social environmental conditions and she received her doctorate in Human Behavior and Design from Cornell University.

Joseph Dieleman, PhD, is associate professor of Health Metric Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. He also leads the Resource Tracking research team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). This team has completed research focused on estimating health care spending by disease, tracking of development assistance for health and government health spending, projecting health care spending, and using novel methods to estimate health care value, cost of illness, and poverty rates at the subnational level. His projects are split between global research—seeking to understand financial flows for health in a wide variety of contexts—and US research—seeking to describe how health care is purchased. Dieleman received his PhD in Economics at the University of Washington.

Our Speakers

Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD, MS, FAAN, is a tenured professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University, and chief of the Division of Neurology Clinical Outcomes Research and Population Sciences (Neuro CORPS) in the Neurology Department. He also serves as the Chief Clinical Science Officer of the American Heart Association. His research focuses on stroke prevention, inflammatory and infectious biomarkers in stroke risk prediction, atrial cardiopathy, immune therapy for acute stroke, and vascular causes of cognitive aging. Elkind is principal investigator of several awards from NIH/ NINDS, including the ARCADIA trial of apixaban vs aspirin for atrial cardiopathy in cryptogenic stroke and the Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS), an epidemiological study of stroke risk factors. Elkind also has a long-standing commitment to medical education and research training.

Harrison Hines, MD, MTS, is a neurologist who leverages his background in theological ethics and policy to address health care disparities burdening underserved populations. For the past year, Harrison was appointed as a White House Fellow in the Executive Office of the President. He served on the Domestic Policy Council as a policy advisor where he spearheaded several projects including coordinating federal efforts to address social determinants of health. Harrison’s previous work in the public sector includes serving as a legislative aide to California State Assemblymember (now Secretary of State) Shirley Weber, where he championed legislation expanding insurance coverage for developmentally disabled Californians and improving representation for incarcerated individuals. He completed residency training at the University of California, San Francisco.

Walter J. Koroshetz, MD, FAAN, serves as director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). He joined NINDS in 2007 as deputy director and has held leadership roles in multiple programs, including co-leading the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) BRAIN Initiative, the NIH RECOVER Initiative on Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19, the Helping to End Addiction Long Term (HEAL) Initiative, the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Parkinson’s Disease and the Public-Private Partnership in ALS. Before joining NINDS, Koroshetz served as vice chair of neurology, director of stroke and neurointensive care services at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and neurologist in the MGH Huntington’s Disease clinic. He was a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and led neurology resident training at MGH from 1990–2007.

Shari M. Ling, MD, is the deputy chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Ling’s committed focus is on the achievement of meaningful health outcomes for patients and families through the delivery of high quality, person-centered care across all care settings. Her clinical focus and scientific interests are in the care of persons with dementia, multiple chronic conditions, and functional limitations. She represents CMS on the work groups for the National Alzheimer’s Project Plan. Ling is a geriatrician-trained clinician serving veterans as a volunteer dementia care provider, and as part-time faculty in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Patricia Loudis, MD, is a Cigna Healthcare Medical Director. She is board-certified in internal medicine and completed her neurology residency at Pennsylvania Hospital. She served the northeast Philadelphia community in private practice for 15 years. She obtained an executive MBA from Temple University and then transitioned to Cigna to apply her neurology expertise to population health management.

Tatjana Rundek, MD, PhD, is a professor of neurology, executive vice chair of Research and Faculty Affairs, and director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Miami. She is a neurologist, clinical researcher, and investigator of NIH-funded programs and projects on determinants of brain health, age-related memory loss, and cognitive decline. She is a collaborative investigator with extensive research networks with multiple national and international research teams. She is a section editor of Stroke for Brain Health and serves on the editorial boards of several other influential scientific journals. In 2022, she was elected to the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida.

Moriah E. Thomason, PhD, is the Barakett associate professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. She is also faculty in the Department of Population Health at the Neuroscience Institute. Her current National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants examine environmental factors with potential to influence functional neurocircuitry of the developing brain. She received her graduate and postdoctoral training at Stanford and MIT in neuroscience She is a standing member of the Child Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities study section within the Center for Scientific Review, serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Developmental Cognitive Science, and in 2019 received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Office of the President of the United States.

Vision of the AAN

To be indispensable to our members.

Mission of the AAN

To promote the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care and enhance member career satisfaction.

Founded in 1948, the American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists, serving 40,000 members who treat hundreds of millions of people with neurologic diseases. We have a long track record of educating the public about these diseases through our Brain & Life® suite of magazines, books, podcast, and website resources as well as public Brain Health Fairs and a robust press release program that results in thousands of media stories that raise public awareness of the latest research on brain disease and treatments.

Brain & Life is a patient and caregiver magazine, website, book series, and podcast from the American Academy of Neurology.

For more than 20 years, the AAN has been providing materials and information to educate and inform neurology patients and anyone interested in brain health through Brain & Life.

BrainandLife.org