David Vaillancourt
Professor/Chair | University of Florida
Gainesville, FL, UNITED STATES
David Vaillancourt’s studies how the brain regulates voluntary and involuntary movement with a specific focus on motor disorders.
Biography
David Vaillancourt’s research focuses on how the brain regulates voluntary and involuntary movement with a specific focus on motor disorders. His research program uses advanced neuroimaging techniques to study the functional and structural changes in the brain of humans and animal models that span Parkinson’s disease, tremor, ataxia and dystonia.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Structural and Functional Imaging in Rodents and Humans
Rehabilitative, Surgical and Pharmacological Interventions for Motor Disorders
Cortical Oscillations that Underlie Voluntary and Involuntary Movement
Neuroscience and the Brain
Progression Markers of Parkinson’s Disease
Media Appearances (5)
University neuro experts receive millions for MRI-based study into Parkinson’s
HealthImaging online
2021-03-30
“The goal is that clinical trials will be better because they will focus on specific variants,” said co-principal investigator David Vaillancourt, PhD, chair of the UF College of Health & Human Performance’s Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology. "Patients will be able to know their diagnosis earlier.”
New AI tool being tested in UF Health study to improve Parkison's diagnosis
Becker's Healthcare online
2021-03-23
"This isn't going to replace the physician's decision-making; it's just meant to be another tool in their toolkit," David Vaillancourt, PhD, chair of UF's department of applied physiology and kinesiology and a principal investigator on the study, told UF Health. "The goal is that clinical trials will be better because they will focus on specific variants. Patients will be able to know their diagnosis earlier."
Artificial Intelligence Tool Seeks to Enhance Parkinson’s Diagnosis
HealthITAnalytics online
2021-03-22
“This isn’t going to replace the physician’s decision making; it’s just meant to be another tool in their toolkit,” said David Vaillancourt, PhD, professor and chair of the UF College of Health & Human Performance's department of applied physiology and kinesiology. “The goal is that clinical trials will be better because they will focus on specific variants. Patients will be able to know their diagnosis earlier.”
Biomarker breakthrough could improve Parkinson’s treatment
UF News online
2016-08-15
“Our technique does not rely upon the injection of a drug. Not only is it non-invasive, it’s much less expensive,” said David Vaillancourt, Ph.D., a professor in UF’s Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology and the study’s senior author.
Researchers examine how Parkinson’s disease alters brain activity over time
PsyPost online
2016-08-15
“If you know that in Parkinson’s disease the activity in a specific brain region is decreasing over the course of a year, it opens the door to evaluating a therapeutic to see if it can slow that reduction,” said senior author David Vaillancourt, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology. “It provides a marker for evaluating how treatments alter the chronic changes in brain physiology caused by Parkinson’s.”
Articles (5)
Alteration of the cholinergic system and motor deficits in cholinergic neuron-specific Dyt1 knockout mice
Neurobiology of DiseaseYuning Liu, et al.
2021-03-24
Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder characterized by sustained or intermittent muscle contractions, repetitive movement, and sometimes abnormal postures. DYT1 dystonia is one of the most common genetic dystonias, and most patients carry heterozygous DYT1 ∆GAG mutations causing a loss of a glutamic acid of the protein torsinA. Patients can be treated with anticholinergics, such as trihexyphenidyl, suggesting an abnormal cholinergic state.
Cell-specific effects of Dyt1 knock-out on sensory processing, network-level connectivity, and motor deficits
Experimental NeurologyB.J. Wilkes, et al.
2021-06-25
DYT1 dystonia is a debilitating movement disorder characterized by repetitive, unintentional movements and postures. The disorder has been linked to mutation of the TOR1A/DYT1 gene encoding torsinA. Convergent evidence from studies in humans and animal models suggest that striatal medium spiny neurons and cholinergic neurons are important in DYT1 dystonia. What is not known is how torsinA dysfunction in these specific cell types contributes to the pathophysiology of DYT1 dystonia.
A Higher Order Manifold-Valued Convolutional Neural Network with Applications to Diffusion MRI Processing
International Conference on Information Processing in Medical ImagingJose J. Bouza, et al.
2021-06-14
In this paper, we present a novel generalization of the Volterra Series, which can be viewed as a higher-order convolution, to manifold-valued functions. A special case of the manifold-valued Volterra Series (MVVS) gives us a natural extension of the ordinary convolution to manifold-valued functions that we call, the manifold-valued convolution (MVC). We prove that these generalizations preserve the equivariance properties of the Euclidean Volterra Series and the traditional convolution operator.
Investigating the role of striatal dopamine receptor 2 in motor coordination and balance: Insights into the pathogenesis of DYT1 dystonia
Behavioural Brain ResearchYuning Liu, et al.
2021-01-23
DYT1 or DYT-TOR1A dystonia is early-onset, generalized dystonia. Most DYT1 dystonia patients have a heterozygous trinucleotide GAG deletion in DYT1 or TOR1A gene, with a loss of a glutamic acid residue of the protein torsinA. DYT1 dystonia patients show reduced striatal dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) binding activity. We previously reported reduced striatal D2R proteins and impaired corticostriatal plasticity in Dyt1 ΔGAG heterozygous knock-in (Dyt1 KI) mice.
A New MRI Measure to Early Differentiate Progressive Supranuclear Palsy From De Novo Parkinson's Disease in Clinical Practice: An International Study
Movement DisordersAndrea Quattrone, et al.
2020-11-05
Enlargement of the third ventricle has been reported in atypical parkinsonism. We investigated whether the measurement of third ventricle width could distinguish Parkinson's disease (PD) from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
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