Professor, Neurosurgery
Professor, Neurology
Department of Surgery
University of Chicago
5841 S. Maryland Ave, MC 3026
Chicago, IL, 60637
Phone: (773) 702-6157
Email:
Education
M.D.: Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY
Internship: Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, IL
Residency: Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY
Board Certification: Neurological Surgery
• Clinical
Interests
• Complete
Bibliography
• Image Gallery:
Dr. Penn is well known for his research and clinical work in drug delivery to the nervous system and surgical treatments for movement disorders. He pioneered the use of implantable drug pumps to deliver medications directly to the spinal cord, implanting the first programmable pump for cancer pain and developing a highly successful medicine for spasticity.
He also has contributed to the treatment of movement disorders with early studies on neuro-transplantation for Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s chorea. He was one of the first in the United States to use deep brain stimulation to relieve tremor, bradykinesia and dystonia.
Dr. Penn currently is working on several translational projects. With Dr. Linninger at UIC, he is studying hydrocephalus with the goal of understanding the underlying physical dynamics in order to produce more effective CSF shunts. He is also working with UIC bioengineers on methods to predict the distribution of medication delivery directly into brain tissue. Both projects use advanced MRI techniques and modeling.
With Catherine Ojakangas, Ph.D., he is recording neurons in the basal ganglion in Parkinson’s patients to see how they learn new motor behaviors.
With investigators in Neurology and Anatomy, he is helping on several epilepsy studies. These include predicting seizures from EEG recordings and understanding networks that produce seizures in patients.
• Modeling of brain tissue and fluid movement in hydrocephalus
(NSF grant in collaboration with Andreas Linninger, PhD at UIC)
• Drug distribution in brain tissue with intraparenchymal infusion
• Motor cortex recording for neural prosthesis
• Intraoperative recording of basal ganglion function
• DBS for primary and secondary dystonia
Modeling, monitoring, and control of hydrocephalus (05/15/07-4/30/09)
NIH (Linninger, Penn, PIs)
National Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Mathematical modeling for targeted drug delivery (09/01/07-8/31/10)
National Science Foundation (Penn, PI)
Epilepsy Research: Predicting seizures (04/01/08-04/01/10)
Susman and Asher Foundation
Penn RD, Savoy S, Corcos D, Latash, Gottlieb G, Parke B, Kroin J: Intrathecal baclofen for severe spinal spasticity: a double-blind crossover study. N Eng J Med 320:1517-1521, 1989 (PubMed)
Penn RD, Kroin JS, Reinkensmeyer A, Corcos DM: Injection of GABA-agonist into globus pallidus in patient with Parkinson’s disease. Lancet 351:340-341, 1998 (PubMed)
Penn RD, Lee MC, Linninger AA, Miesel K, Lu N, Stylos L: Pressure Gradients in the Brain in an Experimental Model of Hydrocephalus. J Neurosurg 102:1069-1075, 2005 (PubMed)
Lang AE, Gill S, Patel NK, Lozano A, Nutt JG, Penn R, Brooks DJ, Hotton G, Moro E, Heywood P, Brodsky MA Burchiel K, Kelly P, Dalvi A, Scott B, Stacy M Turner D, Wooten VG, Elias WJ, Laws ER, Dhawan V, Stoessl AJ, Matcham J, Coffey RJ, Traub M. Randomized controlled trial of intraputamenal glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor infusion in Parkinson disease. Ann Neurol. 2006 Mar;59(3):459-66. (PubMed)
Hochberg LR, Serruya MD, Friehs GM, Mukand JA, Saleh M, Caplan AH, Branner A, Chen D, Penn RD, Donoghue JP. Neuronal ensemble control of prosthetic devices by a human with tetraplegia. Nature. 2006 Jul 13;442(7099):164-71. (PubMed)
Zhu DC, Xenos M, Linninger AA, Penn RD Dynamics of lateral ventricle and cerebrospinal fluid in normal and hydrocephalic brains. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2006 Oct;24(4):756-70. (PubMed)
Linninger AA, Xenos M, Zhu DC, Somayaji MR, Kondapalli S, Penn RD. Cerebrospinal fluid flow in the normal and hydrocephalic human brain. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2007 Feb;54(2):291-302 (PubMed)
