Telephone Interview with Dr. Caviness from Mayo Clinic

Our team enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Dr. Caviness, who is a Professor of Neurology and a doctor at the Mayo Clinic.  He specializes in movement disorders and has been involved in a lot of research with Parkinson’s Disease.  

We asked Dr. Caviness how he became interested in specializing in movement disorders.  He shared that when he was close to our age he became really interested in electricity and physics.  Once he learned how the nervous system, brain, and muscles involved electricity, he knew at a young age that this fascinated him and that he would wanted to work in this area when he grew up and he did!  

Dr. Caviness has been involved in lots of research.  Much of it has involved studying how well the drugs work.  The other project he is really involved with is brain bank research.  They do biochemical and genetic studies on the brain tissues donated from deceased Parkinson’s patients.  When the PD patients sign up to donate their brain, the researchers do a lot of testing on them and later when they have the brain to study they can closely correlate their symptoms and the actual findings on the brain. This helps the researchers learn a lot.

The biggest challenge Dr. Caviness feels they face in understanding Parkinson’s is that it is a problem with the molecules and the ways the moleculres are interacting within the brain.  Trying to study molecules when a person is alive is very, very difficult.  Dr. Caviness explained to us that trying to understand Parkinson’s is like having very short clips from various parts of a movie and then trying to figure out what the whole movie is really about.  It is hard to understand things fully or make conclusions, when you only have small bits and pieces of information.

 

Dr. Caviness personally believes that the real culprit in Parkinson’s is a chemical protein called synuclein.  He explained to us that this particular type of protein is accumulating in the brains of people with Parkinson’s in high levels and concentrations..  These clumps of synuclein that deposit and build up on the brain then interfere with how nerves work in circuits.  This results in abnormal interaction of nuclear protein.  We asked the doctors could something be done to get rid of the protein or prevent it from building up.  Dr. Caviness mentioned there is a real need to somehow get rid of the protein and that he is particularly interested in finding a way to block the synuclein’s ability to form clumps.  This is where we got excited and shared our idea because we would like to develop nanobots capable of entering the brain and identifying the particular protein and then targeting it, breaking it up and destroying the clumps as they start to form, or even to break them up after they have formed.  Dr. Caviness thought this was a very good idea and something that could work very well.  He just cautioned us that we would need to find a way to also protect the good cells and tissues at the same time.

When asked what he thinks about the future of Parkinson’s.  Dr. Caviness shared that he has a lot of optimism and hope.  He is encouraged because there has been so much progress made and so much learned about chemical and molecular processes in Parkinson’s.  Although he shared that he really can’t say and doesn’t know when we will find a cure, etc.  He is very hopeful that in the next 5-15 years that we will make a lot more progress.   Dr. Caviness said in the past the treatment was all just about “masking symptoms”, but now we are really moving towards truly slowing down the progression of Parkinson’s and new drugs are having more and more good results.  He shared there will still be many hurdles but things are really moving forward.

The doctor shared that PD and PSP both affect movement, balance, how you talk, etc., but that they really are quite different diseases, especially in their chemical basis.  Chemicals and proteins involved in PD and PSP are completely different.  PSP involves PAU, which is not at all involved in Parkinson’s.

We asked the doctor if robotics have played any part in the research aimed at discovering the cause or cure for Parkinson’s.  He shared not that he really knew of.  Dr. Caviness shared that with gastrointestinal issues there is a capsule pill people can swallow that kind of works somewhat like a nanobot, but it isn’t truly a nanobot.

We wrapped up our conversation with him, asking him how he sees younger generations, like us, possibly playing a role in unraveling these mysteries and helping this population.  Dr. Caviness was really nice and encouraging.  He told us that younger people like us would be of “tremendous help” because we have new ideas, new computer and technology skills and knowledge.  He shared that they really need young minds, and just how important the ideas of the younger generations will be.  

John N. Caviness, M.D.

Professor of Neurology

Mayo Clinic Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ

Departments: Neurology and Parkinson's Disease & Movement Center

His clinical practice involves movement disorders, electrophysiology of movement disorders, and interpretation of electroencephalography. His main research interest is cortical function in Parkinson's disease and its role in cognitive deterioration/dementia. He has discovered and characterized small-amplitude myoclonus in Parkinson's disease and established its cortical origin. Caviness described EEG analysis of the mild cognitive impairment state in Parkinson's disease. Also, with colleagues, he has proposed a definition for mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. Other research interests are:

·         Movement Disorders

·         Myoclonus, particularly the Myoclonus associated with neurodegenerative disease

·         Electrophysiology of Movement Disorders, particularly Myoclonus

·         Huntington's disease

·         Clinical Neurophysiology of electroencephalography

·         Basic Movment Physiology

·         Cellular neurophysiology/neurochemistry

·         Neurochemistry

·         Clinical-Pathological correlation of neurodegenerative disease


http://www.mayoclinic.org/bio/10479244.html

http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/staff/caviness_jn.cfm