Dr. Shabbir Merchant

Dr. Merchant is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School/ Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Fellowship Director of Movement disorders program. After completing his medical school at Seth G S Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai, India, he came to USA and completed residency in Neurology at Hahnemann Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA. He did a fellowship in Movement disorders at Neurological Institute of New York/ Columbia University and then was a clinical fellow in the Human Motor Control Section at NINDS/NIH. His current clinical practice is focused on movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), tremors, dystonia’s, myoclonus etc. and includes clinical assessment, expertise in intraoperative neurophysiological mapping and post-operative programming for deep brain stimulation (DBS) using cutting edge technologies. He utilizes ultrasound and EMG guided precise targeting of muscles with botulinum toxins for treatment and rehabilitation of neurological disorders such as dystonia’s and spasticity from various etiologies. He has a special interest in clinical neurophysiology for objective diagnosis and phenotyping of movement disorders and physiology of human motor control. He serves leadership roles in the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society as co-chair of the executive committee of Study Group on Clinical Neurophysiology in Movement Disorders and executive committee member of the international education committee of Movement Disorders Society. His research interests are to understand the pathophysiologic mechanisms of movement disorders and gain mechanistic insights into human motor control using multimodal experimental designs, combining structural neuroimaging, functional neuroimaging, EEG, EMG and invasive/non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such  transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments. He has served as a principal investigator and associate investigator on several studies and has extensive clinical trials experience serving as site PI for industry sponsored clinical trials for movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Dystonia, etc. He is also a credentialed investigator of Parkinson’s Study Group.