Ludy Chen Shih, MD, MMSc, FAAN, FANA
Associate Professor, Neurology

Biography
Dr. Shih is a neurologist focused on movement disorders and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease (PD), dementia, and essential tremor (ET). She is also a Framingham Heart Study and BU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center investigator with research interests in how PD, dementia, ET and related disorders intersect with cognitive impairment and aging. Her work includes using neuroimaging analytic techniques, wearable sensors, and other methods to assess and characterize neurologic impairment in order to develop clinical and translational tools for diagnosis and management of disease among diverse populations. Her investigator-initiated work has been funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology (CIMIT), and the Tremor Research Group (TRG).
She completed a Master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Clinical Investigator Training Program in collaboration with Pfizer and Merck & Co. Her clinical practice and interests have focused on taking care of patients in all stages of PD and related disorders, including those before, during and after deep brain stimulation (DBS) and heavily centered upon the interdisciplinary nature of assessing and managing motor, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of individuals with PD, as well as those with ET and dystonia.
Currently, her group is interested in four main areas:
1. Developing digital motor and cognitive signatures of brain aging in community-based and clinical populations to improve detection of PD, PD dementia and other forms of dementia.
2. The use of technology to improve care for vulnerable aging individuals with PD, on motor, cognitive and behavioral aspects
3. ET epidemiology, investigational treatments and outcomes research
4. Improving education and career development pathways for physician-scholars
Additional Experiences:
While working in biotech and pharma, she has worked on multi-disciplinary teams on biomarker (fluid, imaging and wearable sensors), epidemiology, and natural history studies. Primarily focused on research and early development, she led clinical study design for several phase 1 and phase 2 studies, including the evaluation and selection of outcome assessments, including biomarker assessments and biostatistical innovation into protocol development, and was responsible for overall study execution and oversight. In addition, she has experience with both US and EU regulatory agency interactions, academic-industry partnerships through scientific collaborations, and evaluated external assets for in-licensing.
She currently serves as Associate Editor for Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology (ACTN), and on the Board of the American Society for Experimental Neurotherapeutics (ASENT). She also sits on the International Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Society (MDS) Tremor Study Group and Epidemiology Study Group, and Medical Advisory Board for the International Essential Tremor Foundation (IETF). She is a member of the Parkinson Study Group (PSG), Tremor Research Group (TRG), and is fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and of the American Neurological Association (ANA).
Education
- University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, MD
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MMS/MMSc
- Stanford University, BS
Publications
- Published on 5/30/2023
Miller MI, Shih LC, Kolachalama VB. Machine Learning in Clinical Trials: A Primer with Applications to Neurology. Neurotherapeutics. 2023 Jul; 20(4):1066-1080. PMID: 37249836.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 5/29/2023
Wang R, Shih LC. Parkinson's disease - current treatment. Curr Opin Neurol. 2023 Aug 01; 36(4):302-308. PMID: 37366218.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/9/2023
O'Shea SA, Shih LC. Global Epidemiology of Movement Disorders: Rare or Underdiagnosed? Semin Neurol. 2023 Feb; 43(1):4-16. PMID: 36893797.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/17/2023
Mahajan A, Shih LC. Introduction to Diagnostic Challenges in Movement Disorders. Semin Neurol. 2023 Feb; 43(1):2-3. PMID: 36807281.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 6/20/2022
Qiu S, Miller MI, Joshi PS, Lee JC, Xue C, Ni Y, Wang Y, De Anda-Duran I, Hwang PH, Cramer JA, Dwyer BC, Hao H, Kaku MC, Kedar S, Lee PH, Mian AZ, Murman DL, O'Shea S, Paul AB, Saint-Hilaire MH, Alton Sartor E, Saxena AR, Shih LC, Small JE, Smith MJ, Swaminathan A, Takahashi CE, Taraschenko O, You H, Yuan J, Zhou Y, Zhu S, Alosco ML, Mez J, Stein TD, Poston KL, Au R, Kolachalama VB. Multimodal deep learning for Alzheimer's disease dementia assessment. Nat Commun. 2022 Jun 20; 13(1):3404. PMID: 35725739.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 4/9/2022
Cosentino S, Shih LC. Does essential tremor increase risk of cognitive impairment and dementia? Yes. Int Rev Neurobiol. 2022; 163:195-231. PMID: 35750363.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/1/2021
Fehlings MG, Chen Y, Aarabi B, Ahmad F, Anderson KD, Dumont T, Fourney DR, Harrop JS, Kim KD, Kwon BK, Lingam HK, Rizzo M, Shih LC, Tsai EC, Vaccaro A, McKerracher L. A Randomized Controlled Trial of Local Delivery of a Rho Inhibitor (VX-210) in Patients with Acute Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury. J Neurotrauma. 2021 08 01; 38(15):2065-2072. PMID: 33559524.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 12/19/2019
Schneider RB, Jimenez-Shahed J, Abraham DS, Thibault DP, Mantri S, Fullard M, Burack MA, Chou KL, Spindler M, Jermakowicz WJ, D'Haese PF, York MK, Kirk JC, Schwalb JM, Espay AJ, Shih LC, Simon DK, Hunter C, Crispo JAG, Willis AW. Acute readmission following deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson's disease: A nationwide analysis. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2020 01; 70:96-102. PMID: 31866156.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 10/30/2019
Joutsa J, Shih LC, Fox MD. Mapping holmes tremor circuit using the human brain connectome. Ann Neurol. 2019 12; 86(6):812-820. PMID: 31614012.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/21/2019
Broom L, Worley A, Gao F, Hernandez LD, Ashton CE, Shih LC, VanderHorst VG. Translational methods to detect asymmetries in temporal and spatial walking metrics in parkinsonian mouse models and human subjects with Parkinson's disease. Sci Rep. 2019 02 21; 9(1):2437. PMID: 30792396.
Read at: PubMed
View 32 more publications: View full profile at BUMC