Michele Tagliati, MD, One of the Nation's Leading Specialists

Named Director of Movement Disorders Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Los Angeles - Sept. 24, 2010 - Michele Tagliati, MD, one of the nation's leading research and treatment specialists in Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, has been named director of the Movement Disorders Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Tagliati is one of the pioneers and top educators of deep brain stimulation, a treatment that uses implanted electrodes to modulate the faulty electrical impulses that trigger involuntary movements. He also is an expert in the use of botulinum toxin injection therapy (commonly known as BOTOX®, Myobloc®, or Dysport™) to control involuntary muscle contractions

Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tagliati often serves in faculty and advisory roles with such organizations as the American Academy of Neurology, the Movement Disorder Society, the National Institutes of Health, the Parkinson Study Group, the National Parkinson Foundation, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, the Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Research Foundation, and the Parkinson Alliance.

Prior to accepting the position at Cedars-Sinai's Department of Neurology, Tagliati served as associate professor of neurology and division chief of movement disorders at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Mount Sinai's is one of the largest programs for Parkinson's disease and dystonia in the United States. Dystonia is a movement disorder that causes muscles to contract and spasm involuntarily. Various types of dystonia affect one, several or many muscles, and can force the body into repetitive and often twisting movements as well as awkward, irregular postures.

Tagliati has published more than 60 articles in prestigious journals, authored more than 20 chapters in medical textbooks, and written several articles for online publications, such as emedicine.com. In 2007, he co-authored the book Parkinson's Disease for Dummies. Tagliati has lectured at conferences and academic institutions around the world and is one of the premier educators of deep brain stimulation management. He currently serves as the director of the educational course on DBS programming given at the American Academy of Neurology annual meetings.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Rome, Italy, where he also completed a residency in neurology and a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology. After moving to New York in 1993, Tagliati completed an internship and second neurology residency at Mount Sinai. He then served a fellowship in movement disorders at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, where he worked for five years. He taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York for four years before returning to The Mount Sinai Medical Center in 2004.

Tagliati's specialty areas include various types of movement disorders, including tremor, dystonia, chorea, tics, and Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's is a chronic, progressive disorder affecting nearly 1 million people in the United States. It is caused by the malfunction and death of certain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical messenger. As a result, patients are unable to properly initiate or control their movements.