Professor Pierre Pollak
Professor Pierre Pollak, is a French neurologist who received his medical and neurological training at the University of Grenoble. This training was completed in Paris with Professor Agid and in several North American sites. After obtaining his specialty as a neurologist, he continued his university hospital career at Grenoble University Hospital where he was appointed assistant professor in neuropharmacology then professor of neurology in 1992 and created a medical unit entirely dedicated to movement disorders.
Appointed head of the neurology department at Grenoble University Hospital, his research activities focused on the development of deep brain stimulation in close partnership with Professor Alim-Louis Benabid. After the discovery in 1987 that the effect of high frequency stimulation of the thalamus suppressed tremor, he demonstrated the respective role of each electrical parameter on the clinical effects. This discovery was applied to other intracerebral targets, notably to the subthalamic nucleus in 1993, allowing a major improvement in the main motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Other targets have been stimulated, causing sometimes spectacular improvements in diseases that were resistant to drug therapies, notably dystonia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This research was able to be carried out thanks to a multidisciplinary team, including neuropsychologists and psychiatrists, to best evaluate all the potential effects of DBS. Our ethical concern has been aimed first and foremost at improving the patients’ quality of life. Up to now DBS has been applied to about 300 000 patients worldwide and is the sole deep brain machine interface approved by health authorities.
From 2010, Pierre was appointed head of the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital of Geneva. He has participated in the publication of more than 250 articles in the field of DBS. He has received several awards including among others the Grand Prize of the Foundation for Medical Research awarded by the French Academy of Sciences, “Victories of Medicine Prize”, Annemarie Opprecht Foundation Award, Stanley Fahn Presidential Lecture Award, Movement Disorder Society and Deep Brain Stimulation Society Honorary Memberships.
