Trends in Movement Disorder Research: Ihtsham ul Haq, MD, FAAN

"What is hot comes from at least 3 different directions: what clinicians think is most important, what patients think is most important, and what the government thinks is most important. Hopefully, all 3 converge. Honestly, I think they do a pretty good job of converging right now.”

Saturday afternoon’s session at the 2021 American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting, April 17-22, titled “Movement Disorders 1,” featured presentations from 4 speakers and was moderated by Ihtsham ul Haq, MD, FAAN and Irene Malaty, MD. The variety in abstracts presented during the session painted a picture of the vastly different types of research being done within movement disorders community at the moment.

Among them included the use of troriluzole in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia, role of cerebellum in tremor-dominant dystonia, the PD GENEration study, and the efficacy and safety of SEP-363856, a non-D2 receptor blinding drug with antipsychotic activity, in patients with Parkinson disease psychosis. Haq, chief of the Movement Disorder Division at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, claims that in light of these advances in movement disorders, there is still much to be learned.

To him, he feels as though when researchers develop a new way of looking at things such as procedures, the knowledge suddenly “explodes.” Haq recently sat down with NeurologyLive to discuss the areas in which our knowledge of PD has grown, as well as the topics of discussion that need to be continued.

For more coverage of AAN 2021, click here.