Speakers
Dr. Etsuro Mori is a board-certified neurologist with subspecialties in behavioral neurology and stroke. He received his M.D. from Kobe (1977). He completed his postgraduate medical education at Kobe University Hospital with training in neurology and earned Ph.D. from Institute of Medical Science, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine (1982). After working in Hyogo Brain and Heart Center at Himeji, Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, CA, USA, and Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders in Himeji, Japan, he became a chairman and professor of Department of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in 2003. In 2017, he was elected as Professor Emeritus, Tohoku University, and was appointed professor of Department of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, United Graduate School, Osaka University. Dr. Mori has published more than 300 papers on aspects of stroke, behavioral neurology, dementia, and idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus in international peer-reviewed journals. With his colleagues, he discovered and conceptualized disproportionately enlarged subarachnoid hydrocephalus (DESH), as a neuroimaging hallmark of iNPH, and led multicenter studies of iNPH in Japan.
Etsuro Mori, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry,
Osaka University
Professor Emeritus, Tohoku University
Geir Ringstad MD PhD is Consultant Neuroradiologist and Chair of the Neuroimaging Research Group at Oslo University Hospital in Norway, and is past president of the Norwegian Society of Neuroradiology. His main research focus has for the last 10 years been on cerebrospinal fluid flow and CSF related brain disorders. Together with neurosurgeon prof. Per Kristian Eide, he brought intrathecally enhanced MRI (gMRI) to the clinical field with their 2017 paper in Brain on gMRI in iNPH dementia. Ringstad and co-workers were the first to demonstrate that human CSF communicates with all brain regions and that sleep deprivation impairs brain molecular clearance. Their recent papers in Nature Communications and Brain are the first to show molecular efflux from CSF to human lymph-near dural tissue and skull bone marrow, respectively. Dr. Ringstad has been invited speaker on the current topic at several international meetings, lately at the Annual Meeting of the ASNR 2022 in New York and will also be speaker at this years` upcoming Annual Meeting of the ESNR in Lisbon and RSNA in Chicago.
Geir Ringstad, MD PhD
Department of Radiology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
Dr. Madoka Nakajima,M.D., Ph.D
Associate Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, Juntendo University Hospital
Shigeki Yamada is an assistant professor at the Department of Neurosurgery, Shiga University of Medical Science, and a researcher at the Numerical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo.
Shigeki obtained a doctor's license in 1997 and belonged to the Department of Neurosurgery, Kyoto University. He studied the basics of Genetics, Statistics, 3D Imaging, and Computational Fluid Dynamics in the Ph.D. course at Kyoto University Graduate School from 2001 to 2005 (2 papers were published in Circulation and 4 in Stroke about genetics and statistics of intracranial aneurysm).
He specializes in neurosurgery, neuroimage, microvascular surgery, idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH), and V-P shunting.
He had studied iNPH from Prof. Masatsune Ishikawa at the Rakuwakai Otowa hospital since 2013.
He has been published in more than 30 journal papers on hydrocephalus and cerebrospinal fluid since 2015.
He has been collaborating with Fujifilm Co., Ltd. on application development of 3D volume analyzer SYNAPSE 3D since 2017.
His research themes in 2022 are 3D fluid analysis of the brain and 3D gait movement analysis of healthy elderly and iNPH patients.
Shigeki Yamada
Assistant professor (hospital lecturer), Department of Neurosurgery,
Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan
Researcher, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies / Institute of Industrial Science,
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Dr. Graff-Radford is the David Eisenberg Professor at Mayo Clinic. He completed a Neurology Residency at the University of Colorado Health Science Center in Denver, a fellowship in Behavioral Neurology with Dr. Damasio in Iowa where he stayed on the faculty for 7 years. He has been at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville for 32 years and was promoted to full Professor at the Mayo College of Medicine in 1994. He served as Chair of the Department of Neurology for 10 years until 2004. His research is in Alzheimer disease, Frontotemporal Demential, Lewy Body Disease and Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. Dr. Graff-Radford has been NIH funded since 1991 and has published over 660 peer review papers
Neill R. Graff-Radford
MBBCh, FRCP (London)
Marita Andersson Grönlund is a professor in Ophthalmology. She has extensive experience of leading positions as a pediatric ophthalmologist, lecturer, and researcher at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. She is now also programme director for the Medical Programme at Örebro University, Sweden.
Marita Andersson Grönlund is heading a research group called “Acquired and genetic influence of eye growth and visual function”. This project pertains to a large proportion of children and young adults growing up in the world today. We have an increasing proportion of infants suffering from pre- and perinatal complications, resulting in growth restriction and congenital defects, affecting brain and visual system development. Since brain growth and the visual system are not fully developed at birth, preventive measures and treatment should be able to have positive effects even later in childhood. The functioning and the morphology of the eye and the visual system can be measured by relatively simple methods, and objective measurements can be carried out of the optic nerve, the thickness of the retina and retinal vessels. A successful completion of this project will not only lead to a better understanding of pathophysiology and prognosis, but also have an impact on prevention, diagnostics, and treatment.
Marita Andersson Grönlund, MD, PhD
Professor in Ophthalmology
Graduated from the Charles University Medical School in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, in 1992. Employed as radiologist at the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital in Hradec Kralove, Czechia between 1992 - 2007 and 2010 - 2016, respectively (Head of the MRI unit). Between 2007 and 2010, working as Consultant Radiologist at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, Dumfries, United Kingdom. Employed at the Department of Imaging and Functional Medicine, University Hospital of Umeå, Sweden, as Consultant Neuroradiologist since 2016 until now. Professor of Radiology at Charles University in Prague since November 2008. Professional profile focused on neuroradiology and MR imaging. First author or co-author of 15 medical monographies and textbooks, 105 scientific articles and more than 270 oral papers.
Jan Zizka, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Radiology
Dept. of Imaging and Functional Medicine
University Hospital of Umeå
907 37 Umeå,Sweden
Dr. Ville Leinonen is a Professor of Neurosurgery at University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and Kuopio University Hospital in Kuopio Finland. He obtained his MD (2002) and PhD (2004) from University of Kuopio. He received Duodecim Young Investigator Award in 2015 and elected to professor of Neurosurgery in University of Oulu in 2017. In 2020 he was invited to his current position in UEF. He has over 130 peer reviewed original publications with H-index 31 (Scopus).
Since 2010 he has been a director of Kuopio NPH Patient, Family and Tissue Registry with on-going recruitment of so far over 1100 patients with possible idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) focusing on pathophysiology and prognosis of iNPH and early Alzheimer’s disease. The collection contains e.g., brain biopsy, blood and CSF samples integrated with life-long follow-up.
Ville Leinonen
University of Eastern Finland
Kuopio University Hospital
Graduated University of Århus, Denmark in 1973. Specialist in Neurology 1980.
PhD Thesis 1982: "Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteins in Degenerative Neurological.
Disorders". Dept. of Neurology, Gothenburg University Sweden.
2000 Professor of Neurology, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Chairperson at the Institution of Clinical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, Gothenburg University, 1997-2005.
Head of Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, 1996-97.
Professor Emeritus 2014 -.
Co-editor for Acta Neurologica Scandinavica 2007 - 2021.
President of ”Hydrocephalus2006”, International Meeting in Gothenburg.
President of the International Society of Hydrocephalus and CSF disorders (ISHCSF) 2008 -2010.
President of Nordic Hydrocephalus Academy 2006 -2010.
Sixteen PhD students. Around 160 peer reviewed articles published.
Carsten Illum Wikkelsø
Dr. Kerstin Andrén completed her Neurology Residency at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg in 2016, followed by work in the Hydrocephalus team at Sahlgrenska, with special interest in NPH and movement disorders. She is currently working as a general neurologist. In 2020 she completed a doctorate thesis on the natural course and long-term prognosis in iNPH, raising the awareness of the importance of early shunt surgery to diminish morbidity and mortality in iNPH.
Kerstin Andrén, MD, PhD
Hydrocephalus Unit, Department of Clinical Neuroscience,
Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg
Neurology Clinic, Angered Local Hospital, Gothenburg
Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi is trained as a molecular and cell biologist. Her research program aims at understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development, physiology and diseases of the brain. Her laboratory focuses mainly on the function of cilia, cerebrospinal fluid flow and glia biology. To this end, she uses a multidisciplinary approach combining state-of-the-art cellular and molecular biology, genetics, microscopy, fluid dynamics, neural imaging, behavioral assays and quantitative data analysis. She mainly employ zebrafish due to its transparent body and brain that are amenable to optical imaging and genetic manipulations. Prior to leading her own team, she has worked on transcriptional regulation and paracrine signaling involved in cell survival (PhD, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany), high-throughput drug-screens and chemical biology to interfere with cellular differentiation (postdoc, Harvard Medical School, USA), and cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases (postdoc, VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium). Since 2015, she has been leading her own team, first as a senior researcher within the Yaksi Lab (Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, NTNU, Norway), and since 2019, as an independent Group Leader at NTNU’s department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine.
Nathalie Jurisch-Yaksi, PhD
Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine
The Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, NTNU
Erling Skjalgsons gate 1
Laboratoriesenteret 5. floor
7491 Trondheim, Norway
Susann Andersson is an experienced Consultant Ophthalmologist with particular interest in pediatric ophthalmology, cerebral visual impairment (CVI), electrophysiology and inherited retinal dystrophy. In addition to clinical practice at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg she is actively involved in teaching and training.
Susann Andersson is a clinical researcher with a strong interest in the visual outcome and ocular morphology in children with Hydrocephalus. Her, more than 20 years, experience in the particular research field, gives us the opportunity to an overview in visual outcome, in children with hydrocephalus, over the years.
Susann Andersson MD, PhD
Senior Consultant in Ophthalmology
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology,
Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
I have a long experience as a psychologist, specialised in neuropsychology, in the Habilitation centre in Halmstad, Sweden. Since the publication of my thesis "Hydrocephalus in children - Cognition and behaviour" in 2007, I have continued with research in cognition in children with myelomeningocele and cerebral palsy. I have also participated in a follow-up of adults treated in infancy with hydrocephalus. Since 2020 I am a member of a multidisciplinary team that investigates cerebral vision impairment in children.
Barbro Lindquist
Specialist in neuropsychology, PhD
Sahlgrenska University Hospital
Dr. William Whitehead is a Professor of Neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine and practices pediatric neurosurgery at Texas Children’s Hospital. He completed Medical School at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, neurosurgery residency at the University of Utah, and pediatric neurosurgery fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario. He is the pediatric neurosurgery fellowship director at Texas Children’s and was honored with the Pin Oak Endowed Chair for Neurosurgery in 2019. His research interest include hydrocephalus and fetal surgery for myelomeningoceles.
William E. Whitehead, MD
Professor of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA
Dr. Iliff is the Associate Director for Research at the VISN 20 Northwest Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Puget Sound. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, and of Neurology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he is the Arthur J. and Marcella McCaffray Professor in Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Iliff was part of the research team that discovered the ‘glymphatic’ system, the brain’s cleaning system that is active during sleep. His research focuses on identifying the molecular changes that underlie glymphatic system failure with aging and after traumatic brain injury, extending these experimental studies into human subjects and clinical populations with an aim of developing new treatment and prevention strategies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Jeffrey J. Iliff
Associate Director for Research
VISN 20 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC)
VA Puget Sound Health Care System
Tiwana Varrecchia received the MSc in Biomedical Engineering in 2015 from Federico II University of Naples, defending the thesis “A sEMG-based approach for biomechanical risk assessment derived from the “Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation (RNLE)”” and the Europaeus PhD in 2020 from Roma. Tre University of Rome, defending the thesis “New instrumental approaches for quantitative assessment of biomechanical risk in occupational field”. Since 2020 she is researcher at the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene of INAIL, the Italian Workers' Compensation Authority. Her main research interests are human factors and ergonomics, job accommodation, clinical biomechanics, neurophysiology, movement disorders and movement analysis. She is dedicating special attention to instrumental-based techniques for the biomechanical risk assessment in manual handling activities. Furthermore, she is focusing her interest on “back to work” of workers affected by several musculoskeletal disorders. She is author of about 30 scientific papers in international peer-review journals and she currently is as reviewer for many journals in the area of biomedical engineering.
Tiwana Varrechia
Biomedical engineer and PhD,
researcher at Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology and Hygiene, INAIL, Rome, Italy
Michael A. Williams, MD is Professor of Neurology and Neurological Surgery and director of Adult and Transitional Hydrocephalus and CSF Disorders at the University of Washington in Seattle. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Valparaiso University (Indiana, USA), and his MD from Indiana University School of Medicine. His neurology residency was at Indiana University Medical Center. He had a fellowship in neurosciences critical care at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Dr. Williams has over 30 years of clinical and research expertise in the field of adult hydrocephalus, including iNPH. He established adult hydrocephalus centers at Johns Hopkins Hospital as well as the University of Washington. He co-directed the first NIH workshop on hydrocephalus in 2005, cofounded the International Society for Hydrocephalus and CSF Disorders (the Hydrocephalus Society), co-founded the Adult Hydrocephalus Clinical Research Network in the US, and has published multiple clinical research papers on adult hydrocephalus. He is also co-author of a recently awarded multi-center placebo-controlled trial of shunt surgery in NPH that was awarded by the NIH. He has ongoing funded research from NASA and the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) to investigate ICP in astronauts.
His background also includes biomedical ethics. Dr. Williams was co-chair of the Ethics Committee at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and chair of the American Academy of Neurology Ethics, Law and Humanities Committee.
Michael A. Williams, MD
Professor of Neurology and Neurological Surgery
University of Washington School of Medicine
Ingmar Skoog became M.D. in 1985, Ph.D. in 1993, specialist in psychiatry 1993, and professor in Psychiatry in 2001. He is currently director for the Centre for Ageing and Health AGECAP, including 130 researchers from 17 institutions and 5 faculties at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and is leading the Neuropsychiatric Epidemiology Unit (Epinep) at the Sahlgrenska Academy. He has been involved in epidemiological research since 1983, and is PI of the Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort Studies, including the 95+ study. He has published more than 450 papers in international scientific journals, cited more than 25,000 times, and been invited speaker to more than 300 international meetings. His main research interest is the epidemiology of ageing, including time-trends in ageing, dementia, and mental disorders of old age. He is member of the Swedish government’s scientific advisory board on ageing.
Ingmar Skoog
Professor in Psychiatry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology,
Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr. Rigamonti is the Medical Director of Johns Hopkins Medicine International.
He coordinates the medical collaboration between Hopkins and its affiliates across the globe.
Prior to this, Dr. Rigamonti was the Chief Executive Officer of Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare. During his 5 years tenure at JHAH, Dr. Rigamonti improved the effectiveness of the care provided in JHAH by insisting on adopting evidence-based clinical protocols and demanding to document outcome measures that are relevant to patients and families. On his watch staff engagement and patients’ satisfaction rose dramatically.
Prior to becoming the CEO of JHAH, he was the Director of the Cerebrovascular Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1993 through 2003 and the Director of the Radiosurgery Program and the CSF Diseases Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 2002 through February 2015.
He published 243 Peer-reviewed scientific articles and 5 books. He holds 5 patents and gave 162 Invited talks. He organized 12 International Conference. He was the President of the International Society of Hydrocephalus and CSF diseases in 2017 and 2018.
Daniele Rigamonti
Medical Director
Johns Hopkins Medicine International
Professor Emeritus of Neurological Surgery
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johnny Sundin is a trend scout and entrepreneur with a background in communication, education, delivering inspiring lectures all over the world.
An inspiring estrador who creates both laughter and insight with his personal presentation technique and visual rhetoric.
Johnny Sundin has substantial experience in creating a dynamic stream of words and images without ever losing sight of the objective.
Johnny Sundin
Inspirational speaker & moderator, and esteemed trend scouts