Kara Johnson, PhD

Pallidal evoked resonant neural activity as a biomarker for deep brain stimulation in dystonia Background Deep brain stimulation (DBS) targeted to the globus pallidus (GP) can effectively alleviate dystonia symptoms. However, identifying optimal therapeutic stimulation parameters is challenging...

Preprint 🚨 Could ERNA be a potential biomarker to guide pallidal DBS for dystonia? We investigated in a small cohort (N=8 patients) and found ERNA predicted the therapeutic contact with ~90% accuracy, and ERNA frequency may be related to alpha power + cervical dystonia severity. Read more here:

Thanks for the highlight @andrewpines.bsky.social!!

Thanks for the shoutout, Andy! Congrats on your amazing talk and award this morning as well 👏 #BrainStimConf

Thank you Eric!!

Thank you so much!!! Can’t wait to celebrate 🇯🇵🤩

Finally, I could probably write an entire book here on my (challenging/long/rewarding) path toward the K99/R00 and the application process, but instead I’ll just say if you’re considering applying and want to chat about it, I’m here for you. Reach out anytime!

HUGE thank you to my amazing mentors over the years for their unwavering support 🙏🏼 Cora de Hemptinne, Chris Butson, Rob MacLeod, @michaelokun.bsky.social; the K99 team: Greg Pontone (co-mentor), Josh Wong, Kelly Foote, @dawnbowers.bsky.social, Melissa Armstrong, & Sam Wu; and many other colleagues.

My research aims to identify multimodal biomarkers of depression in patients with Parkinson’s disease using neuroimaging, intracranial neurophysiology, and deep brain stimulation in both acute intraoperative and chronic naturalistic environments. Hopefully have some updates soon so stay tuned!! 🚨

I’m so thrilled to finally share the news of my NIH NINDS K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award!!! 🎉💃🏼 Long awaited and a little beam of light amidst the chaos and impending doom 😅 Words cannot express how much this opportunity to launch the next phase of my career means to me. A few notes below...

Wow!!! Congratulations, Andy! 🎉

Is it critical to stimulate @ndosenbach.bsky.social's SCAN and CON networks for clinical improvements of Tourette's patients that undergo DBS?

Carlos Baldermann says yes in a cool new paper out in @natureportfolio.bsky.social comms today!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Inspired by @ariellekeller.bsky.social and created a Starter Pack for those who zap brains! ⚡Let me know if you'd like to be added!

go.bsky.app/9MnSuJ6

Could you add me?! Thanks for putting this together!

Thank you!! Great to be here 🦋

👋🏼 I’m a biomedical engineer and currently a postdoc at Univ of Florida! I love all things deep brain stimulation 🧠⚡️ and identifying neuroimaging and neurophysiological markers to guide neuromodulation therapies for psychiatric and movement disorders. Happy to be here and connect with everybody!!