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Samer Tabbal, MD

Dr. Tabbal is a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the International Movement Disorder Society and the Parkinson Study Group, the Huntington Study Group.

Licensure: Diplomate, National Board of Medical Examiners, Missouri Board of the Healing Arts; Diplomate, American Board of Neurology & Psychiatry.

Dr. Tabbal's main research interests include mechanisms of deep brain stimulation in Parkinson disease and other movement disorders, basal ganglia neurophysiology and pathophysiology of dystonia.
His clinical activities include the evaluation and treatment of patients with Parkinson disease and related syndromes, essential and other forms of tremors, ataxia, normal pressure hydrocephalus, gait disturbances, Huntington disease, Tourette syndrome, dystonia (including generalized dystonia, spasmodic torticollis and blepharospasm), drug-induced movement disorders (including tardive dyskinesia), myoclonus, hemifacial spasm and other movement disorders requiring botulinum toxin injections.

Dr. Tabbal evaluates potential candidates for deep brain stimulation surgery. He participates in the performance of such surgeries that consists of implanting electric stimulators in deep targets in the brain, including the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for Parkinson disease, the thalamus (Vim) for tremors and the internal globus pallidus (GPI) for dystonia. He also handles post-operative DBS programming.

Medical Training

Dr. Tabbal received his B.Sc. in Physics in 1989 from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon where he also completed his M.D. in 1993. Following an internship in internal medicine, he completed in 1997 his residency training in Neurology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) at Little Rock. He then spent 2 years of fellowship training at Columbia University, New York City. He served for 3 years as Assistant Professor of Neurology at UAMS and the Arkansas Veterans Administration Health Care System where he directed the Neurology Residency Training Program and organized the Huntington Disease Multidisciplinary Clinic. He joined Washington University at Saint Louis in June 2003 as Assistant Professor of Neurology and Director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program for Parkinson Disease and Other Movement Disorders. He won The Sven Eliasson Award for Teaching Excellence for the year 2003-2004.

Selected Publications

Khalil AH., Yamout BI, Tabbal SD, Salem ZM, Mroueh AM: Case report and review of literature: Leptomeningeal relapse in epithelial ovarian cancer. Gynecologic Oncology, 54: 227-231, August 1994.

Tabbal S, Fahn S, Frucht S: Fetal Tissue transplantation in Parkinson's Disease. Current Opinion in Neurology, 11: 341-349, August 1998.

Tabbal SD, Harik SI: Cerebral Histoplasmosis. Images in Clinical Medicine Section of the New England Journal of Medicine, 340(15): 1176, April 1999.

Pullman SL, Goodin DS, Marquinez AI, Tabbal S, Rubin M: Clinical utility of surface EMG: report of the therapeutics and technology assessment subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology, 55(2): pp171-177, July 25, 2000.

Louis ED, Barnes L, Wendt KJ, Ford B, Sangiorgio M, Tabbal S, Lewis L, Kaufmann P, Moskowitz C, Comella CL, Goetz CC, Lang AE: A teaching videotape for the assessment of essential tremor. Movement Disorders, 16(1): 89-93, 2001.

Zraick RI, Dennie TM, Tabbal SD, Hutton TJ, Hicks GM, O'Sullivan PS. Reliability of Speech Intelligibility Ratings Using the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, 11(4): 227-240, 2003.

Zraick RI, Davenport DJ, Tabbal SD, Hutton TJ, Hicks GM, Patterson JH. Reliability of Speech Intelligibility Ratings Using the Unified Huntington Disease Rating Scale. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, 12(1): 31-40, 2004.

Saunders-Pullman R, Blau N, Hyland K, Zschocke J, Nygaard T, Raymond D, Shanker V, Mohrmann K, Arnold L, Tabbal S, deLeon D, Ford B, Brin M, Chouinard S, Ozelius L, Klein C, Bressman SB. Phenylalanine loading as a diagnostic test for dopa-responsive dystonia: interpreting the utility of the test. Molecular Genetics & Metabolism, 83(3): 207-12, November 2004.

Parkinson Study Group. A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial of Rasagiline in Levodopa-Treated Patients With Parkinson Disease and Motor Fluctuations: The PRESTO Study. Archives of Neurology, 62: 241-248, February 2005.

Racette BA, Tabbal SD, Jennings D, Good LM, Perlmutter JS, Evanoff BA. Prevalence of Parkinsonism and relationship to exposure in a Large Sample of Alabama Welders. Neurology, 64: 230-235, January 2005.

Racette BA, Tabbal SD, Jennings D, Good LM, Perlmutter JS, Evanoff BA. A Rapid Method for Mass Screening for Parkinsonism. Neurotoxicology, 27(3): 357-361, May 2006.

Goetz CG, Schwid S, Eberly SW, Oakes D, Shoulson I, Parkinson Study Group TEMPO and PRESTO Investigators. Safety of rasagiline in elderly patients with Parkinson disease. Neurology. 66(9):1427-9, May 2006.

Weiss EM, Hershey T, Karimi M, Racette B, Tabbal SD, Mink JW, Paniello RC, Perlmutter JS. Relative risk of spread of symptoms among the focal onset primary dystonias. Movement Disorders, 21(8):1175-81, August 2006.

Ushe M, Mink JW, Tabbal SD, Hong M, Schneider-Gibson P, Rich KM, Lyons KE, Pahwa R, Perlmutter JS. Postural tremor suppression is dependent on thalamic stimulation frequency. Movement Disorders, 21(8):1290-2, August 2006.

Tabbal SD, Mink JW, Antenor JV, Carl JL, Moerlein SM, Perlmutter JS. 1-Methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-induced acute transient dystonia in monkeys associated with low striatal dopamine. Neuroscience, 141(3): 1281-1287, September 1, 2006.

Elmer L. Schwid S. Eberly S. Goetz C. Fahn S. Kieburtz K. Oakes D. Blindauer K. Salzman P. Oren S. Prisco UL. Stern M. Shoulson I. Parkinson Study Group TEMPO. PRESTO Investigators. Rasagiline-associated motor improvement in PD occurs without worsening of cognitive and behavioral symptoms.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences. 248(1-2):78-83, October 2006.

Tabbal SD, Revilla FJ, Mink JW, Schneider-Gibson P, Wernle AR, de Erausquin GA, Perlmutter JS, Rich KM, Dowling JL. Safety and Efficacy of Subthalamic Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation Performed With Limited Intra-Operative Mapping for Treatment of Parkinson's Disease. Neurosurgery, 61(3):119-129, September 2007.

Parkinson Study Group PRECEPT Investigators. Mixed lineage kinase inhibitor CEP-1347 fails to delay disability in early Parkinson disease. Neurology. 69(15):1480-90, October 2007.

Earhart GM, Hong M, Tabbal SD, Perlmutter JS. Effects of thalamic stimulation frequency on intention and postural tremor. Experimental Neurology, 208 (2): 257-263, December 2007.

Videen TO, Campbell MC, Tabbal SD, Karimi M, Hershey T, Perlmutter JS. Validation of a Fiducial-Based Atlas Localization Method for Deep Brain Stimulation Contacts in the Area of the Subthalamic Nucleus. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 168 (2): 275-281, March 15, 2008.

Hershey T, Wu J, Weaver PM, Perantie DC, Karimi M, Tabbal SD, Perlmutter JS. Unilateral vs. bilateral STN DBS effects on working memory and motor function in Parkinson disease. Experimental Neurology, 210(2): 402-8, April 2008.

Tabbal SD, Ushe M, Mink JW, Revilla FJ, Wernle AR, Hong M, Karimi M, Perlmutter JS. Unilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation has a measurable ipsilateral effect on rigidity and bradykinesia in Parkinson disease. Experimental Neurology, 211(1): 234-42, May 2008 (this article was identified by the editor as a newsworthy article to be highlighted).

Schwarzschild MA, Schwid SR, Marek K, Watts A, Lang AE, Oakes D, Shoulson I, Ascherio A; Parkinson Study Group PRECEPT Investigators, Hyson C, Gorbold E, Rudolph A, Kieburtz K, Fahn S, Gauger L, Goetz C, Seibyl J, Forrest M, Ondrasik J. and the Parkinson Study Group. Serum urate as a predictor of clinical and radiographic progression in Parkinson disease. Archives of Neurology, 65(6): 716-23, June 2008.

Karimi M, Golchin N, Tabbal SD, Hershey T, Videen TO, Wu J, Usche M, Revilla FJ, Hartlein JM, Wernle AR, Mink JW, Perlmutter JS. Subthalamic nucleus stimulation-induced regional blood flow responses correlate with improvement of motor signs in Parkinson disease. Brain, 131: 2710- 2719, October 2008.

Campbell MC, Karimi M, Weaver PM, Wu J, Perantie DC, Golchin NA, Tabbal SD, Perlmutter JS, Hershey T. Neural correlates of STN DBS-induced cognitive variability in Parkinson disease. Neuropsychologia, 46(13): 3162-9, November 2008.

Earhart GM, Clark BR, Tabbal SD, Perlmutter JS. Gait and balance in essential tremor: variable effects of bilateral thalamic stimulation. Movement Disorders. 24(3): 386-91, February 2009.

Xiao J, Bastian RW, Perlmutter JS, Racette BA, Tabbal SD. Karimi M, Paniello RC, Blitzer A, Batish SD, Wszolek ZK, Uitti RJ, Hedera P, Simon DK, Tarsy D, Truong DD, Frei KP, Pfeiffer RF, Gong S, Zhao Y, LeDoux MS. High-throughput mutational analysis of TOR1A in primary dystonia. BMC Medical Genetics, 10:24, March 2009.