Mark Edwards (MBBS, BSc(Hons), PhD, FRCP, FEAN) is Professor of Neurology at St George’s University of London and The Atkinson Morley Regional Neuroscience Service at St George’s University Hospital. He has a specialist clinical and research interest in Movement Disorders and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND).
He did his PhD with Professor John Rothwell and Professor Kailash Bhatia at the UCL Institute of Neurology, studying the pathophysiology of genetic dystonia. During this period he was involved with the development of a novel and now widely used technique for transcranial magnetic stimulation: theta burst stimulation.
Following completion of neurology training he became a Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at UCL and the National Hospital for Neurology. Here he developed an NIHR funded research program and specialist diagnostic and treatment service for patients with FND. After moving to St George’s in 2015 he expanded this work to develop one of the first integrated diagnostic and treatment services for FND alongside continued research work into the pathophysiology of the disorder and development and testing of novel treatments, including the first randomised trial of specialist physiotherapy for functional movement disorders.
He is also an active part of the specialist movement disorders and deep brain stimulation team at the Atkinson Morley Regional Neuroscience Centre, and continues electrophysiological and psychophysical research work into the pathophysiology and treatment of movement disorders in general.
He has published over 250 peer reviewed publications and is author of the Oxford Specialist Handbook of Parkinson’s Disease and Other Movement Disorders. He is President of the Association of British Neurology Movement Disorders Group, International Executive Committee member of the International Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Society, Board and Founding Member of the Functional Neurological Disorder Society, Associate Editor of the European Journal of Neurology, and medical advisor for FNDHope, the UK Dystonia Society and the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine.
He is the winner of the Jon Stolk Award for Movement Disorders research from the American Academy of Neurology, the David Marsden Award for Dystonia research, the Queen Square Prize and the Uschi Tschabitscher prize for research from the European Academy of Neurology.
He leads the Motor Control and Movement Disorder Group which is comprised of neurologists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists and basic scientists. As a group they use psychophysical and neurophysiological techniques to study motor control and how it is disrupted in common movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, functional movement disorders, and Tourette’s syndrome. There is a focus on movement disorders associated with ageing, in particular Parkinson’s disease, with ongoing studies relating to gait disturbance, falls and cognitive decline – all issues which particularly affect older people.
There is a strong clinical and translational component to the work, using the group’s clinical expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of people with movement disorders. They are especially interested in the use of rehabilitative techniques (both physical and cognitive/psychological) in treatment of people with movement disorders and with the overlap between psychiatry and neurology.