Movement disorders specialists in Florida

Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science in Jacksonville, Dr. Wszolek holds the Haworth Family Professorship in Neurodegenerative Diseases at Mayo Clinic Florida. His research focuses on the genetics of parkinsonism and related neurodegenerative diseases.

His group identified a susceptibility locus for Parkinson's disease on chromosome 2p13 in a large familial dataset, one of the earlier linkage studies to point toward heritable risk factors for the disease ⁵. Later work characterized alpha-synuclein gene triplication in families with hereditary early-onset parkinsonism and showed that doubling of alpha-synuclein protein expression correlated with the severity of cell loss in affected brain regions ³. He also contributed to the international consortium that defined the worldwide genetic penetrance of LRRK2-associated Parkinson's disease, finding that lifetime risk among LRRK2 mutation carriers varies by ancestry and by which specific mutation they carry ².

Professor of Neurology, Molecular Pharmacology, and Physiology at the University of South Florida, and Director of the USF Health Byrd Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center, Dr. Hauser practices at Tampa General Hospital. His clinical focus is Parkinson's disease treatment and clinical trials.

He contributed to a multicenter trial testing high-frequency thalamic stimulation for tremor, an early clinical study of what became deep brain stimulation (DBS), which showed significant tremor reduction in both essential tremor and Parkinson's patients over one year of follow-up ¹⁰. His work on the REAL-PET study compared ropinirole versus levodopa in early Parkinson's disease using dopamine PET imaging and found that the dopamine agonist was associated with slower decline in striatal dopamine terminal function over two years ⁹. Dr. Hauser also participated in the ADAGIO trial, a double-blind delayed-start study of rasagiline published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which tested whether early treatment with this MAO-B inhibitor might have a disease-modifying effect ⁷.

Professor and Associate Chair of Faculty Development in the Department of Neurology at the University of Florida, Dr. Armstrong directs the UF Health Mangurian Clinical-Research Headquarters for Lewy Body Dementia at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville. Her work covers Parkinson's disease, Lewy body dementia, and rarer movement disorders including corticobasal degeneration.

She is first and corresponding author on a JAMA review of Parkinson's disease diagnosis and treatment cited more than 2,600 times, covering clinical criteria for diagnosis, pharmacologic options at each disease stage, and interventions such as deep brain stimulation and levodopa-carbidopa enteral suspension ¹¹. She also led development of practice guidelines on mild cognitive impairment, which overlaps with Parkinson's disease dementia and Lewy body dementia ¹². Her work on diagnostic criteria for corticobasal degeneration, a rare movement disorder that can be mistaken for Parkinson's disease, reflects her scope across atypical parkinsonian syndromes ¹³. She has contributed to neurology guidelines on botulinum neurotoxin for cervical dystonia and blepharospasm as well ¹⁴.

Practicing at Mayo Clinic Florida in Jacksonville, Dr. Uitti's research has focused on the genetics of Parkinson's disease, immune system involvement in neurodegeneration, and neuroimaging biomarkers.

He contributed to studies identifying mutations in the VPS35 gene as a cause of autosomal dominant Parkinson's disease ¹⁶ and to work characterizing LRRK2 exonic variants and their association with Parkinson's risk across multiple populations ¹⁷. Earlier research examined T-lymphocyte population changes in Parkinson's disease patients compared to controls, a line of work pointing toward immune system involvement in the disease process ¹⁸. His group also used PET imaging to study LRRK2 mutation carriers who had no clinical symptoms yet, finding compensatory changes in striatal dopamine function that may precede the appearance of motor signs ²⁰.

Chair of Neurology and Executive Director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Dr. Okun has one of the largest publication records among movement disorders specialists in the United States. His clinical work centers on Parkinson's disease and deep brain stimulation. The Norman Fixel Institute holds Center of Excellence designation for both Parkinson's disease and DBS from their respective national organizations.

Professor of Neurology at the University of South Florida and Director of both the USF Ataxia Research Center and the USF Parkinson's Disease and Balance Center, Dr. Zesiewicz practices at Tampa General Hospital. Her clinical and research interests cover Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and ataxia.

She is first and corresponding author on a 2010 review of essential tremor that covers epidemiology, pathogenesis, and treatment options including DBS of the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus ²³. A simulator-based study she led found that Parkinson's disease patients had significantly more collisions than controls, with collision rate correlating with disease stage, which informs the driving safety counseling that neurologists provide ²². Her work on ataxia rating scales examined which clinical measurement tools are most reliable for tracking cerebellar disorders, relevant both for clinical trials and for monitoring patients over time ²¹.