Alexandra Nelson, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Neurology
School of Medicine

She is a member of the clinical and research team at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center and Huntington's Disease Clinic, designated a center of excellence by the Huntington's Disease Society of America.

As both a neuroscientist and a behavioral neurologist, Nelson is particularly interested in understanding neurodegenerative movement disorders, conditions in which progressive nerve-cell degeneration can diminish mental as well as physical function. Her laboratory team studies the cells and circuits involved in movement disorders. Her research seeks to distinguish brain regions, cells and patterns of brain activity that promote normal movement from those that produce abnormal movement, allowing development of more focused treatments.

Nelson earned her medical degree and a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, where she studied cerebellar motor learning. She then completed a residency in neurology at UCSF and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Gladstone Institutes, where she investigated specific neurological circuits involved in Parkinson's disease and dystonia, or abnormal muscle tone.

Nelson joined the UCSF faculty in 2014. She is the Richard and Shirley Cahill Endowed Chair in Parkinson's Disease Research. She belongs to the Society for Neuroscience, American Neurological Association, International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society and Huntington Study Group.

• The S-Factor, a New Measure of Disease Severity in Spinocerebellar Ataxia: Findings and Implications.
  Cerebellum (London, England) 2022 Selvadurai LP, Perlman SL, Wilmot GR, Subramony SH, Gomez CM, Ashizawa T, Paulson HL, Onyike CU, Rosenthal LS, Sair HI, Kuo SH, Ratai EM, Zesiewicz TA, Bushara KO, Öz G, Dietiker C, Geschwind MD, …
• Therapeutic deep brain stimulation disrupts movement-related subthalamic nucleus activity in parkinsonian mice.
  eLife 2022 Schor JS, Gonzalez Montalvo I, Spratt PWE, Brakaj RJ, Stansil JA, Twedell EL, Bender KJ, Nelson AB
• Striatal Indirect Pathway Dysfunction Underlies Motor Deficits in a Mouse Model of Paroxysmal Dyskinesia.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2022 Nelson AB, Girasole AE, Lee HY, Ptácek LJ, Kreitzer AC
• NMDARs in granule cells contribute to parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synaptic plasticity and motor learning.
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2021 Schonewille M, Girasole AE, Rostaing P, Mailhes-Hamon C, Ayon A, Nelson AB, Triller A, Casado M, De Zeeuw CI, Bouvier G
• Frontostriatal Projections Regulate Innate Avoidance Behavior.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2021 Loewke AC, Minerva AR, Nelson AB, Kreitzer AC, Gunaydin LA
• Directly to the Point: Dopamine Persistently Enhances Excitability of Direct Pathway Striatal Neurons.
  Neuron 2020 McGregor MM, Nelson AB
• A diagnostic ceiling for exome sequencing in cerebellar ataxia and related neurological disorders.
  Human mutation 2019 Ngo KJ, Rexach JE, Lee H, Petty LE, Perlman S, Valera JM, Deignan JL, Mao Y, Aker M, Posey JE, Jhangiani SN, Coban-Akdemir ZH, Boerwinkle E, Muzny D, Nelson AB, Hassin-Baer S, Poke G, Neas K, …
• Functionally Distinct Connectivity of Developmentally Targeted Striosome Neurons.
  Cell reports 2019 McGregor MM, McKinsey GL, Girasole AE, Bair-Marshall CJ, Rubenstein JLR, Nelson AB
• Multiple stimulation parameters influence efficacy of deep brain stimulation in parkinsonian mice.
  The Journal of clinical investigation 2019 Schor JS, Nelson AB
• Circuit Mechanisms of Parkinson's Disease.
  Neuron 2019 McGregor MM, Nelson AB
• Aberrant Striatal Activity in Parkinsonism and Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia.
  Cell reports 2018 Ryan MB, Bair-Marshall C, Nelson AB
• Expanding the global prevalence of spinocerebellar ataxia type 42.
  Neurology. Genetics 2018 Ngo K, Aker M, Petty LE, Chen J, Cavalcanti F, Nelson AB, Hassin-Baer S, Geschwind MD, Perlman S, Italiano D, Laganà A, Cavallaro S, Coppola G, Below JE, Fogel BL
• A Subpopulation of Striatal Neurons Mediates Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia.
  Neuron 2018 Girasole AE, Lum MY, Nathaniel D, Bair-Marshall CJ, Guenthner CJ, Luo L, Kreitzer AC, Nelson AB
• 500 Fronto-Striatal Modulation of Anxiety-Like Behaviors.
  Biological Psychiatry 2017 Lisa Gunaydin, Alexandra Nelson, Anatol Kreitzer
• BK Channels Are Required for Multisensory Plasticity in the Oculomotor System.
  Neuron 2016 Nelson AB, Faulstich M, Moghadam S, Onori K, Meredith A, du Lac S
• Parkinsonism Driven by Antipsychotics Originates from Dopaminergic Control of Striatal Cholinergic Interneurons.
  Neuron 2016 Kharkwal G, Brami-Cherrier K, Lizardi-Ortiz JE, Nelson AB, Ramos M, Del Barrio D, Sulzer D, Kreitzer AC, Borrelli E
• Pearls & Oy-sters: Episodic ataxia type 2: Case report and review of the literature.
  Neurology 2016 Guterman EL, Yurgionas B, Nelson AB
• Bridging the Gap: Muscarinic M4 Receptors Promote Striatal Plasticity in Health and Disease.
  Neuron 2015 Girasole AE, Nelson AB
• Probing striatal microcircuitry to understand the functional role of cholinergic interneurons.
  Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society 2015 Girasole AE, Nelson AB
• Striatal cholinergic neurotransmission requires VGLUT3.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2014 Nelson AB, Bussert TG, Kreitzer AC, Seal RP
• Striatal cholinergic interneurons Drive GABA release from dopamine terminals.
  Neuron 2014 Nelson AB, Hammack N, Yang CF, Shah NM, Seal RP, Kreitzer AC
• Reassessing models of basal ganglia function and dysfunction.
  Annual review of neuroscience 2014 Nelson AB, Kreitzer AC
• Seizures and epileptiform activity in the early stages of Alzheimer disease.
  JAMA neurology 2013 Vossel KA, Beagle AJ, Rabinovici GD, Shu H, Lee SE, Naasan G, Hegde M, Cornes SB, Henry ML, Nelson AB, Seeley WW, Geschwind MD, Gorno-Tempini ML, Shih T, Kirsch HE, Garcia PA, Miller BL, Mucke L
• Hilar GABAergic interneuron activity controls spatial learning and memory retrieval.
  PloS one 2012 Andrews-Zwilling Y, Gillespie AK, Kravitz AV, Nelson AB, Devidze N, Lo I, Yoon SY, Bien-Ly N, Ring K, Zwilling D, Potter GB, Rubenstein JL, Kreitzer AC, Huang Y
• A comparison of striatal-dependent behaviors in wild-type and hemizygous Drd1a and Drd2 BAC transgenic mice.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2012 Nelson AB, Hang GB, Grueter BA, Pascoli V, Luscher C, Malenka RC, Kreitzer AC
• Hilar GABAergic interneuron activity controls spatial learning and memory retrieval.
  Alzheimer's & Dementia 2012 Yaisa Andrews-Zwilling, Anna Gillespie, Alexxai Kravitz, Alexandra Nelson, Nino Devidze, Iris Lo, Seo Yeon Yoon, Nga Bien-Ly, Karen Ring, Daniel Zwilling, Gregory Potter, John Rubenstein, Anatol …
• Distinct roles of GABAergic interneurons in the regulation of striatal output pathways.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2010 Gittis AH, Nelson AB, Thwin MT, Palop JJ, Kreitzer AC
• Speech-activated myoclonus masquerading as stuttering.
  Neurology 2009 Gelfand JM, Nelson AB, Fross RD, Glass GA
• Decreases in CaMKII activity trigger persistent potentiation of intrinsic excitability in spontaneously firing vestibular nucleus neurons.
  Neuron 2005 Nelson AB, Gittis AH, du Lac S
• Long-lasting increases in intrinsic excitability triggered by inhibition.
  Neuron 2003 Nelson AB, Krispel CM, Sekirnjak C, du Lac S
• Regulation of firing response gain by calcium-dependent mechanisms in vestibular nucleus neurons.
  Journal of neurophysiology 2002 Smith MR, Nelson AB, Du Lac S