Mahlon R. DeLong is an American neurologist and professor at the Medical School of
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
. His research has advanced the understanding and treatment of
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
,
dystonia
Dystonia is a neurological hyperkinetic movement disorder in which sustained or repetitive muscle contractions result in twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal fixed postures. The movements may resemble a tremor. Dystonia is often inten ...
,
tremor
A tremor is an involuntary, somewhat rhythmic, muscle contraction and relaxation involving oscillations or twitching movements of one or more body parts. It is the most common of all involuntary movements and can affect the hands, arms, eyes, fa ...
and other
neurological
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
movement disorders.
DeLong attended
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
(AB 1962),
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
(MD 1966), completed his internship at
Boston City Hospital
The Boston City Hospital (1864–1996), in Boston, Massachusetts, was a public hospital, located in the South End. It was "intended for the use and comfort of poor patients, to whom medical care will be provided at the expense of the city, and . ...
and his residency training at
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
in Baltimore, and subsequently joined the faculty of
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
. Since 1990, he has been a member of the faculty at
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
, where he has been the William Patterson Timmie Professor of Neurology since 1993. He is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiative.
In 1968, DeLong began five years of research training in the laboratory of
Edward Evarts
Edward Vaughan Evarts (March 28, 1926 – July 2, 1985) was an American neuroscientist. He pioneered single-unit recordings from the brains of awake, behaving monkeys.
Life
Evarts received his undergraduate degree at Harvard College and an M ...
at the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
in Bethesda, Maryland. In 1971, he and Russell T. Richardson did experiments with monkeys to find out first groups of neurons (nucleus basalis), which are involved in the pathogenesis conditioned learning and they revealed the role played by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
At the NIH, DeLong recorded the reactions of single brain cells in a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. At that time, it was known that the basal ganglia were involved in movement, and were the part of the brain most significantly affected in Parkinson’s disease. However, little was known about how the basal ganglia affected movement, or how disease of the basal ganglia caused the movement disorders seen in Parkinson's disease. In meticulous experiments over several years, DeLong measured the firing of specific cells in the basal ganglia of awake monkeys when they performed specific trained movements.
Based on this work, and the work of others, DeLong and his colleagues identified a series of separate circuits that connect the basal ganglia with the cerebral cortex and thalamus. These circuits allow parallel processing of emotions, thoughts, and movement.
In the 1980s, DeLong and his colleagues began to study monkeys with an experimentally-induced disease much like Parkinson’s disease. He discovered that neurons in a part of the basal ganglia called the subthalamic nucleus were firing excessively, and that destroying (ablating) the subthalamic nucleus greatly improved the symptoms.
Shortly thereafter, neurosurgeon
Alim-Louis Benabid
Alim Louis Benabid is a French-Algerian emeritus professor, neurosurgeon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, who has had a global impact in the development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorde ...
discovered that the same improvement could be achieved by placing a wire into the subthalamic nucleus, connecting it to a battery and delivering an adjustable high-frequency stimulation to the tip of the wire—a technique called deep brain stimulation. Today, this technique is used to improve symptoms and the quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease who are not responding adequately to pharmacologic treatment. Ablation or deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus has transformed the lives of many people with Parkinson’s disease.
For his work in understanding the circuits connecting the basal ganglia to other parts of the brain, and in applying that knowledge to develop a technique that has eased the suffering of many people with Parkinson’s disease, DeLong was honored in 2014 with the
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...
.
The same accomplishments were recognized by his receipt (with Benabid) of the 2014
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is one of four annual awards presented by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker-DeBakey award is given to honor outstanding work for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of diseas ...
.
[ ]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:DeLong, Mahlon R.
American neurologists
Living people
Harvard Medical School alumni
Emory University faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Stanford University alumni
Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Members of the National Academy of Medicine