Best Neurologists in New York

Each neurologist here met three criteria. First, they hold a faculty appointment at a New York academic medical center and carry board certification from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Second, their published research has shaped how their subspecialty is practiced — measured by citation counts, guideline authorship, or landmark trial participation. Third, they have been recognized by independent peer-review programs such as Castle Connolly Top Doctors or New York Magazine Top Doctors.

No specialist paid to appear here. The list is not exhaustive — New York has many excellent neurologists — but every entry reflects verifiable, publicly documented credentials.

Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx | Headache Medicine

Richard B. Lipton, MD, is a neurologist at Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he directs the Montefiore Headache Center and holds the Edwin S. Lowe Chair in Neurology. His clinical focus is chronic migraine and headache disorders in adults. He is board-certified in neurology and headache medicine.

Recognized by Castle Connolly Top Doctors and the Bronx Times Reporter as a top physician, Dr. Lipton has spent three decades studying why some people develop chronic migraine and what stops it. He is accepting new patients.

Why his research matters to patients: The statistic that roughly one in seven Americans lives with migraine — and that most go undertreated — comes largely from Dr. Lipton's work. His two national American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention (AMPP) surveys, conducted a decade apart, established that migraine prevalence has held steady while the treatment gap has widened ¹². A 2021 Lancet review he co-authored laid out the full systems-of-care picture: how primary care, neurology, and headache specialists need to work together so patients actually get preventive therapy ³. His MIDAS questionnaire, developed from that research, is the standard tool clinicians use today to measure how severely migraine disrupts daily life ¹.

NYU Langone Health, New York | Epilepsy

Orrin Devinsky, M.D., is a professor of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he directs NYU Langone's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. He specializes in treatment-resistant epilepsy — cases where two or more medications have already failed. He is board-certified in neurology.

Named to Castle Connolly America's Top Doctors and New York Magazine Top Doctors, Dr. Devinsky sees patients with the most complex seizure disorders, including Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. He is accepting new patients.

Why his research matters to patients: If your child has drug-resistant Dravet syndrome, Dr. Devinsky's 2017 New England Journal of Medicine trial is part of why a treatment option now exists. That trial showed cannabidiol (CBD) cut convulsive seizure frequency nearly in half in children with Dravet, leading directly to FDA approval of Epidiolex — the first plant-derived cannabis treatment the FDA ever approved ⁵. A companion 2018 NEJM trial extended the finding to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, another severe childhood epilepsy ⁷. For adults researching CBD-based therapies, his 2014 pharmacology review in Epilepsia remains the most-cited scientific guide to what the compound actually does and does not do ⁶.

NYU Langone Health, New York | Epilepsy

Jacqueline French, MD, is a professor of neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she serves as Division Director of Epilepsy and Co-Director of Epilepsy Clinical Trials. She specializes in drug-resistant epilepsy and clinical trial design for new anti-seizure medications. Board-certified in neurology since 1987.

Recognized by Castle Connolly Top Doctors: New York Metro Area and Exceptional Women in Medicine, Dr. French has run more epilepsy drug trials than nearly any other neurologist in the country. She is accepting new patients.

Why her research matters to patients: When your neurologist tells you that your epilepsy is "drug-resistant," that term has a precise definition — and Dr. French wrote it. Her 2009 ILAE consensus paper defining drug-resistant epilepsy has been cited more than 4,600 times and is the standard every clinician and trial protocol uses ¹⁰. She also co-chaired the commission that produced the current international classification of the epilepsies, the framework neurologists worldwide use to categorize your specific seizure type ⁹. For patients with treatment-resistant focal epilepsy, she led the phase III trial of everolimus (a drug previously used in cancer) that showed meaningful seizure reduction in tuberous sclerosis complex ¹¹. If you have tried multiple medications without success, Dr. French specializes in exactly that situation.

Lenox Hill Hospital / SUNY Downstate, New York | Vascular Neurology & Stroke

Steven R. Levine, M.D., is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Executive Vice Chairman of Neurology at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, with clinical appointments at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He specializes in stroke, stroke prevention, and cerebrovascular disease — including stroke in younger adults and stroke linked to blood-clotting disorders. He holds dual board certifications in neurology and vascular neurology.

Named to New York Magazine Top Doctors and Castle Connolly Top Doctor lists, Dr. Levine has been treating and studying stroke for more than three decades. He is accepting new patients.

Why his research matters to patients: Dr. Levine was involved in two developments that still shape how stroke patients are treated today. In 1999, he published one of the first papers on "telestroke" — the concept of using videoconferencing to bring stroke specialist expertise to hospitals that lack a dedicated neurologist on call ¹⁹. That infrastructure now saves tens of thousands of lives each year in rural and underserved communities. His 1995 WASID trial (Warfarin-Aspirin Symptomatic Intracranial Disease Study) directly informed treatment guidelines for patients with intracranial artery narrowing, a stroke risk factor common in people of non-European ancestry ¹⁷. If you have had a stroke, a TIA, or a blood clot linked to antiphospholipid antibodies, his clinical expertise covers those intersections directly ¹⁸.

NYU Langone Health, New York | Neuro-Ophthalmology, Multiple Sclerosis

Laura J. Balcer, MD, is the Philip K. Moskowitz Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where she is also a professor of ophthalmology and population health. She specializes in vision problems caused by neurological conditions — primarily multiple sclerosis, optic neuritis, and concussion — and serves patients at the intersection of eye care and brain care. Board-certified in neurology.

Recognized by Castle Connolly Top Doctors, New York Magazine Top Doctors, and Super Doctors, Dr. Balcer sees patients whose vision changes are the first or most prominent sign of a neurological condition. She is accepting new patients.

Why her research matters to patients: If your ophthalmologist or neurologist has ordered an OCT (optical coherence tomography) scan to assess your optic nerve or track your MS, that practice traces in part to Dr. Balcer's work. Her 2007 paper in Neurology was among the first to show that OCT — originally a retinal imaging tool — could detect thinning of the nerve fiber layer behind the eye that correlates with brain atrophy in MS patients ¹³. That finding opened a non-invasive window into neurodegeneration that requires no MRI. Her clinical review of optic neuritis in the New England Journal of Medicine remains a primary reference for patients and doctors navigating a first episode of vision loss that may signal MS ¹⁵. She also contributed to the ADVANCE phase 3 trial of pegylated interferon beta-1a, a relapsing MS therapy that reduced annual relapse rate by 36 percent ¹⁴.

NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York | Neuro-Oncology

Andrew B. Lassman, MD, FAAN, FASCO, is John Harris Professor of Neurology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he serves as Chief of the Division of Neuro-Oncology. He specializes in primary brain tumors — including glioblastoma (GBM), lower-grade gliomas, and primary CNS lymphoma — and brain metastases from other cancers. Board-certified in neurology.

Named to New York Magazine Top Doctors and Castle Connolly Top Doctor lists, Dr. Lassman leads one of the most active brain tumor clinical trial programs in the Northeast. He is accepting new patients.

Why his research matters to patients: A glioblastoma diagnosis brings urgent questions about prognosis and treatment options. Dr. Lassman co-developed and validated a nomogram — a personalized survival calculator — that gives patients and oncologists a more accurate individual estimate than population averages alone, using the specific characteristics of your tumor ²². This tool is now used in clinical practice at major cancer centers. He has also led and contributed to multiple trials of targeted agents in GBM, including the phase III INTELLANCE-1 trial of depatuxizumab mafodotin in EGFR-amplified newly diagnosed GBM — testing whether antibody-drug conjugates can improve outcomes in a cancer that has resisted many prior attempts ²³. For patients newly diagnosed or exploring second opinions on a brain tumor, his depth in the clinical trial landscape is practically important: access to a trial can matter as much as which drug is in it.

New York's density of academic medical centers means you have access to subspecialists who may not exist in smaller cities. That is an advantage — but it also means you need to be specific about what you need.

Match the subspecialty to your diagnosis. A general neurologist is the right starting point for an initial evaluation. Once a diagnosis is made, ask whether a subspecialist is appropriate. Epilepsy, MS, headache, movement disorders, and neuro-oncology all have dedicated fellowship-trained specialists whose practice is built around that one condition.

Board certification tells you about training, not outcomes. The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology certifies in general neurology and several subspecialties (vascular neurology, clinical neurophysiology, epilepsy, sleep medicine, neuromuscular medicine, headache medicine via UCNS). Certification is a floor, not a ceiling.

Peer recognition programs are imperfect but meaningful. Castle Connolly Top Doctors and New York Magazine Top Doctors surveys poll physicians about who they would send their own family members to. The surveys have biases — academic affiliation and research output influence responses — but they capture something real about clinical reputation within the medical community.

Academic affiliation matters for complex cases. At an academic center, your neurologist has direct access to colleagues in neurosurgery, radiation oncology, neuroradiology, and neuropsychology. For conditions like epilepsy surgery, brain tumors, or aggressive MS, that coordination is part of the treatment.

• What is the specific diagnosis, and how confident are you in it?
• Is this a condition where a subspecialist would add something a general neurologist cannot?
• What are the treatment options, and how were they ranked — by efficacy, side effects, or something else?
• Is there a clinical trial I should know about?
• What does the research say about my prognosis over two to five years?
• Who should I call if symptoms change before my next appointment?
• What should I tell my primary care doctor to watch for?

New York's best neurologists are concentrated at a handful of academic medical centers — NYU Langone, Columbia/NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore, and Mount Sinai — where subspecialists run clinical programs, lead research, and see patients in the same building. If you have a complex or treatment-resistant condition, getting to one of those centers is usually worth the effort. The doctors profiled here are reachable, board-certified, and publishing actively in their fields. That combination — clinical access and research depth — is what sets New York neurology apart.