Alex Green

Consultant Neurosurgeon

Dr. Alex Green is a consultant neurosurgeon in Oxford and is currently vice-president (immediate past President) of the British Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (BSSFN). Over the past 9 years he has been looking at the neurocircuitry underlying autonomic function and pain in humans undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). There are several aims of this research. Firstly, to understand both the mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of neuropathic pain as well as why some patients get much better than results than others. Secondly, by understanding the autonomic nervous system, it may be possible to control diseases such as hypertension, respiratory and bladder disease by brain manipulation in the future. Most of the research to date has involved stimulating brain areas under different experimental conditions and also recording local field potentials to understand the underlying neurophysiology. This work has resulted in a number of publications including improvement in peak expiratory flow with stimulation, the effect of stimulation on blood pressure and baroreceptors sensitivity and novel electrical signals associated with pain states. As his clinical activity is largely Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s disease, he has applied this research to the investigation of autonomic dysfunction in PD, including breathlessness and bladder dysfunction.