Peg Nopoulos, MD, University of Iowa, Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Neurology Chair & DEO, Department of Psychiatry

Utilizing neuroimaging (MRI) and clinical research data sets, this presentation will provide an overview of striatal-cerebellum circuitry. Beginning with evaluation of normal human brain development, we will evaluate findings on the process by which specific genes that cause degenerative brain disease (such as Huntington’s and Spinocerebellar Ataxia) drive development of the striatum-cerebellum circuit. We will then discuss how this circuit functions in a striatal-specific disease (Huntington’s) as well as a cerebellarspecific disease (Spinocerebellar Ataxia).