Comprehensive Care Centers
Specialty Centers
Overview
The Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital neurosurgery program for neuromodulation and epilepsy uses advanced neurotechnologies to restore hope and function to patients in the least invasive and most precise ways possible.
Our patient-customized treatment approaches include brain stimulation (such as Deep Brain Stimulation or DBS), where a specific neural circuit is stimulated to help restore its function and laser thermal ablation, in which a small disconnection is created to regulate hyperactive brain circuits and those circuits causing epilepsy, and Gamma Knife radiosurgery for intractable pain and psychiatric disorders. In all of these cases, we believe the key to success is careful attention to an individual patient’s symptoms, neuroanatomy and neurocircuitry.
The neuromodulation and epilepsy program consists of three divisions, with each one composed of a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians focused on achieving a careful understanding of each patient’s condition and goals:
Movement Disorders
The movement disorders team evaluates patients in a comprehensive “fast track” clinic where those considering deep brain stimulation for diseases such as Parkinson’s, Essential Tremor and Dystonia can learn about their disease and explore their treatment options. Decisions are made in a team-based manner, and clinicians from neurosurgery and neurology often work together even in the operating room to ensure optimal targeting for maximal patient benefit.
Epilepsy
Rhode Island Hospital is a Level 4 epilepsy center, offering the full array of the most advanced surgical options for patients with epilepsy. These include high-density intracranial recordings for seizure focus identification, MRI-guided laser ablation of a seizure focus, and brain stimulation to reduce seizures.
Intractable Psychiatric Disorders
Brown University is a world-leader in the application of surgical techniques for severe, intractable psychiatric disorders such as debilitating and otherwise untreatable obsessive compulsive disorder. A team of psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons and ethicists carefully consider patients who have failed all other treatments, to assess whether surgery might offer symptom relief and an improved quality of life.
Our Team
Director
Movement Disorders Fast Track Clinic Team
Neurologists
Umer Akbar, MD, Movement Disorders Specialist, Neurology
Joseph Friedman, MD, Director, Movement Disorders Center, Neurology
Neurosurgeon
Wael Asaad, MD, PhD, Director of Functional Neurosurgery and Neuromodulation
Neuropsychologist
Jennifer David, PhD
Physical therapists
Speech therapists
Swallow function specialist
Functional Neurosurgery & Neuromodulation Research Team
Shane Lee, PhD,Post-Doctoral Fellow, Neuroscience & Neurosurgery
Peter Lauro, MD/PhD Student, Neuroscience & Alpert Medical School
Erin Schaeffer, Research Assistant, Neuroscience & Neurosurgery
Daniel Amaya, MS student, Biotechnology
Epilepsy Team
Neurosurgery Department Team
Wael Asaad, MD, PhD
Steven Toms, MD
Albert Telfeian, MD, PhD
Multidisciplinary Team
Epileptologists
Andrew Blum, MD, PhD – Director of Epilepsy Center, Neurology
Gina Deck, MD – Epileptologist, Neurology
Julie Roth, MD – Epileptologist, Neurology
Radiologists
Jerrold Boxerman, MD – Neuroradiologist, Radiology
Psychiatric Neurosurgery Committee
Neurosurgeons
Wael Asaad, MD, PhD, Director of Neuromodulation and Epilepsy Surgery
Psychiatrists from Butler Hospital and Brown University
Steven Rasmussen, MD, Chair of Psychiatry, Psychiatry
Benjamin Greenberg, MD, PhD, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry
Neuropsychologists
Nicole McLaughlin, PhD, Neuropsychologist, Psychiatry
Geoffrey Tremont, PhD
Neurologists
Kenneth Rickler, MD, Neurologist, Neurology / Butler Hospital
Conditions We Treat
Movement Disorders
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Essential Tremor
- Dystonia
Psychiatric Disorders
- Intractable OCD
- Intractable Depression (experimental)
- Intractable Tourette’s Disease (experimental)
- Alzheimer’s Disease (experimental)
Research
Neurosurgery Department
Other Labs
Technology
“Functional neurosurgery aims to restore quality of life to patients with a wide variety of chronic, debilitating neurological disorders.”
– Wael F. Asaad, MD, PhD
Rhode Island Hospital
Ambulatory Patient Center
(APC) 6
593 Eddy Street
Providence, RI 02903
401-793-9128
401-444-2661