Class of 2025
Mehmet Salih Tuncer, MD
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
Paving the Way to Pursue Dreams My grandparents emigrated from Istanbul to Berlin when my parents were children, and our family has stayed here since. Through a loving, caring environment, my parents encouraged me to pursue whatever I wanted. That paved the way for me to become the first person in my family to attend medical school.
My interest in neuroscience started in high school, through philosophy— especially the mind-body problem and the question of whether consciousness can be reduced to neural processes. I was curious where biology ends and philosophy begins, and studying the brain gave me a way to bridge both.
In my second year at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin, I confirmed my interest in neuroscience when I took neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, even working for many years as a student tutor in the anatomy department. My first research experience was studying how brain tumors affect the brain’ s language network. From there, I was hooked.
Helping Patients through Deep Brain Stimulation The dual focus of the Edmond J. Safra Fellowship was a great opportunity to study deep brain stimulation( DBS) while seeing patients who are affected by movement disorders. What fascinates me most about DBS is its ability
to directly modulate brain networks and dramatically improve quality of life.
On the research side, we are trying to refine imagingbased predictions of DBS efficacy. We looked at how other pathologies in the brain affect people’ s response to DBS. We found that if a person has a significant amount of cerebrovascular disease, for example, capacity to respond to DBS may be reduced, based on the connections involved in the vascular lesions. Ultimately, the vision is to individualize predictions so that we know in advance how DBS will affect each person.
On the patient side of the Movement Disorders Clinic, we implant the DBS electrodes for most people in Berlin who need them. I primarily see people with Parkinson’ s disease in the clinic and attend DBS surgeries to do the microelectric recordings alongside the neurosurgeons.
Sharpening Clinical Skills I continue to work at the Charité, which is the main hospital in Berlin. The education system in Germany is different, and I have two to three years left of my residency. Since there’ s so much complexity in caring for people with Parkinson’ s disease, I am eager to continue training so that I can become a highly skilled clinician for these very special patients.
12 The Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders