Aparna A Wagle Shukla, MD

I am a neurologist striving to provide high quality care to patients with Parkinson's disease, dystonia, tremors, chorea, and other movement disorders. I have experience in administering botulinum toxin injections for treating dystonia, sialorrhea, migraines, and spasticity. I am an active member of the world-renowned deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery program at the University of Florida. Deep brain stimulation is a highly effective treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, Tourette syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Since 2012, I have been involved in the preoperative selection of DBS candidates. I have provided expertise for microelectrode recording in the operation room for accurate electrode placement in the brain, and I actively participate in their outpatient programming of DBS settings.

I am committed to researching movement disorders, working to elucidate the mechanisms underlying movement disorders and develop novel therapeutic approaches. I have conducted multiple studies on the novel applications of oral pharmacological therapies, botulinum toxin injections, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and deep brain stimulation surgery. I am working on increasing the applications of rehabilitation therapies for treating movement disorders.

I have been awarded many grants through the Dystonia Coalition, Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Trust Fund, Blepharospasm Research Foundation, National Organization for Rare Disorders, and the National Institute of Health sponsored NINDS K23 and R01NS122943 (principal investigator) to pursue research interests. I have also been invited to present my research findings at national and international conferences and have over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Brain, Neurology, Journal of Neurology, and Neurosurgery and Movement Disorders.

I am currently the division director of clinical trials and the research chief. The UF Health Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration conducts many trials for developing better therapies for essential tremor, dystonia, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and Tourette syndrome. I am also the clinical director for Tyler's Hope Foundation for Dystonia and the vice president for the Tremor Research Group. I am frequently invited to be a reviewer at the NIH study section, and I have been inducted as an associate editor for Nature Parkinson's Disease Journal and the Drugs in Context journal.