Yasser Mecheri

Neurology fellow from Algeria

[Yasser Mecheri @MecheriYasser]

@PBDsPodcast Fun fact Indea is occupying Kashmir an officially Pakistani district under the partition agreement when founding the two countries. So start from there and see how many Kashmiri have been oppressed by India

[Michael Okun @MichaelOkun]

If you are considering a career in movement disorders check out the @movedisorder movement disorders society Instagram where I will try to convince you TODAY with a series of videos why this is the nerdiest, but coolest specialty. Sorry @DGlaucomflecken

[Michael Okun @MichaelOkun]

Parkinson’s disease, when to start meds. Don’t delay, start today. Susan Fox nails it in ⁦@movedisorder⁩ plenary Important to share the article ⁦@Brain1878⁩ to show important study looking at Italian persons vs those in Africa without as robust of access to levodopa.

[Dr. Heli Shah @dr_heli]

The Momentum has begun
Day 1 #MDSCongress
So much fun meeting friends & colleagues across the country..

[ece bayram @ec_bayram]

#MDSCongress Young Delegates Networking Event happening tomorrow at 7:15 pm!!!

[Bruno Bergmans @BrunoBergmans]

The @movedisorder Young Members Group prepared a Super Secret Informal Website with fantastic events + a roadmap of handpicked recommendations in the events section: https://t.co/XXehSuzUVD
@ec_bayram @MecheriYasser @Senkkon1 @CShambetova @dr_safarpour @Mehri_Salari @marywetani

[ece bayram @ec_bayram]

my personal tips for networking at work events:
-consider it an acting gig. i have social anxiety, so i tell my brain i'm playing the part of a version of myself without social anxiety just for this work event and go meet people.

[Yasser Mecheri @MecheriYasser]

Really looking forwards to this event. I think it is a must for any young member attending the #MDScongress

[ece bayram @ec_bayram]

📢📢📢 #MDSCongress attendees, we're super excited for @movedisorder Young Delegates Networking Event! Block your calendars for Sep 28th 7:30 pm Grand Hall for speed networking with outstanding experts eager to share their insights with you. You've gotz to be there!!!

[ece bayram @ec_bayram]

📢📢📢 #MDSCongress attendees, we're super excited for @movedisorder Young Delegates Networking Event! Block your calendars for Sep 28th 7:30 pm Grand Hall for speed networking with outstanding experts eager to share their insights with you. You've gotz to be there!!!

[Yasser Mecheri @MecheriYasser]

@ec_bayram Great website Ece!

[ece bayram @ec_bayram]

As the MDS Young Members Group leading crew, we made a lil website for #MDSCongress attendees who are eager to check out Philly, our #MDSCongress sessions and our team. Check it out and please share! Edits? Let me know! https://t.co/v2586fN09R
Yes, we have a giant QR code too:

[Yasser Mecheri @MecheriYasser]

@MosabHasanYOSEF Yes braindead living a Syfy tvseries, I read comments from your followers and I see a bunch of brainwashed racists living in a parallèle world lying to themselves and creating new rules justifying the injustifiable. Bon debarras!

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

In June of 1967, at the same time as Israel was starting to enact its military dictatorship over the West Bank and Gaza, the biggest athlete of his time and one of the most famous and recognizable icons of his era, Muhammad Ali, was sentenced to five years in prison for his refusal to join the US military and serve in the Vietnam war.

Two months earlier, on April 28th, his boxing license was suspended, and he was stripped of his heavyweight world champion title and arrested: 3 times his name was called at a Military Entrance Processing Station in Houston, and 3 times he would not step forward.

Before and after that day, he was active and speaking against the war to American students in universities, in rallies throughout the country, in press conferences, and interviews.

He never once buckled under pressure, and crafted some of the most memorable and popular quotes of the Vietnam era like "I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong", or

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years."
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Choosing wisely, the American state did not destroy Ali. Ali came back to the ring after 3 years of forced absence, reclaimed his title, and, beating all the best heavyweights of the time, created an unmatched legacy in all of sports history.
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Almost 60 years after that, it is impossible to even imagine, say, Lebron James or Stephen Curry talking with anything similar to that clarity and conviction about, say, a certain genocide and their country's support for it. It's inconceivable. They see themselves as nothing but earners and entertainers.

I often think about the timeless greatness of Ali, being not only the greatest boxing champion of all time but a great formidable political spirit as well. Ali who did not succumb to fear and pressure and risked his career, freedom, many millions of dollars, and even his life (in a country notorious for lone assassins) by consistently refusing to join a war the American public was still overwhelmingly for at the time.

And what do we have today? Complete craven silence. All the great athletes, rock stars, actors - deafening silence.

Not one of them has as much to lose as Ali did, at the height of a singular career in global sports. Not one of them risks jail time, fierce public hate, or financial ruin. Still, they find no courage to speak up.

They all count their dollars and likes in the dark, psychologically broken, and morbidly anxious stars of nothingness.
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Nearly 6 decades after he willingly put everything on the line for his principles in a spectacular act of real-time political nonconformity, The Great One still shines as a huge beacon of light in a sea of rancid complicity. An inspiration and a role model like no other.
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The absence of an Ali-like figure of our times tells a sad and uniquely poignant story about the triumph of capitalism and conformity over the human spirit in America in the post-Vietnam era; it also tells us how much of a giant Ali really was.

[Michael Okun @MichaelOkun]

What is the cost of Parkinson's to society? Have you thought about all the things we should include on the list which contribute to 'the cost?' It is more than you think. Anke Wijers and colleagues take on this very important question in a systematic review in @MDJ_Journal.
Key Points:
- Cost of illness studies in Parkinson's have perhaps inappropriately focused on health-care costs due to the disease.
- The authors argue this is a mistake, as it is 'underestimating its effects on other sectors.'
- They took apart 17 studies.
- The cost actually 'averaged €20,911.37 per patient per year, increasing to almost €100,000 in the most severely affected patients.'
- Health-care costs accounted for 46% of total.
- Productivity loss was next at 37%.
- Person w/disease and family loss was 16%.
My take: We need to wake up and address Parkinson's disease. It is the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease, and left unchecked it could bankrupt Medicare and similar systems and structures around the world. The cost however, as these authors point out, goes well beyond money. I love how the authors delve into the 'true cost' of a disease like Parkinson's. So when you study cost in a disease, please take a deeper look as there is more behind the curtain.
https://t.co/gocNC4GDgS #Parkinsons #Alzheimers @PdAvengers @ParkinsonDotOrg #Fixelinstitute

[MDS @movedisorder]

MDS Young Members Group author highlight:
Dr. Dana Brinker proposes a practical approach to use the latest EAN/MDS-ES Guideline defining 8 clinical profiles of people with #PD where invasive therapies may be considered. https://t.co/HZjWGIXOvq

[Michael Okun @MichaelOkun]

Can you pick out who has Parkinson's disease from the video using the 'whistle-smile' reflex? Maybe? Frederic Hanes described this sign in 1943. Giulia Paparella and colleagues revisit the observation in a trial of 34 Parkinson's folks versus 34 healthy controls in @MDCP_Journal.
Key Points:
- When healthy individuals are prompted to whistle during a medical examination, 'they typically comply and subsequently smile.'
- In Parkinson's 'they execute the whistle but often fail to produce an immediate smile.'
- In their study they showed a sensitivity of 76% and a specificity of 65% for the sign.
My take: It is hard to believe that there are only two papers on this sign published since 1943. Behavioral neurologists have long been fascinated by spontaneous smiling versus posed and elicited smiling in Parkinson's disease. Though the sensitivity and specificity are too low to become a biomarker, this is a sign neurologists can keep in their pockets for teaching. Researchers may also consider studying this phenomenon with functional imaging as the limbic-motor newtowrk is fascinating and we have also observed DBS induced smiling. The brain is a fascinating supercomputer and frankly, we do not know what we do not know. Ecce signum – behold the sign of the smile in Parkinson's.
https://t.co/GGzIlRgM4T #Parkinsons
Smiles induced by DBS:
https://t.co/SC2cO5lmBj
Spontaneous and posed smiles in Parkinson:
https://t.co/2RgLs5oc63
Motor cortex and facial smiling in primates by Morecraft:
https://t.co/vSzGLsz9pc #Parkinsons #smilefest2024 #smile

[Bruno Bergmans @BrunoBergmans]

New initiative by @movedisorder Young Members Group Steering Committee to highlight the research performed by young members
@ec_bayram @MecheriYasser @marywetani @Mehri_Salari @CShambetova @dr_safarpour @wntbrains4bkfst @Senkkon1 @matarazzomd @DeTijssen @MichaelOkun @basbloem

[Michael Okun @MichaelOkun]

Why are smokers protected from Parkinson's disease? Have we been looking at the wrong element in smoke? Nicotine instead of carbon monoxide? Rose, Gomperts and colleagues @Nature Parkinson's Journal show that there was neuroprotection w/ low dose carbon monoxide in Parkinson’s models and showed it was similar to the reduced risk of Parkinson’s among smokers.
Key Points:
- We know that cigarette smoking is associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson’s.
-The authors wondered if carbon monoxide (CO) levels, which are modestly elevated in smokers, may contribute to neuroprotection.
- They used rodent models.
- Low-dose CO 'mitigated neurodegeneration and reduced αSyn pathology.'
- Then they gave the animals CO administration (by mouth) and this 'activated signaling cascades mediated by heme oxygenase-1, implicated in limiting oxidative stress, and in promoting αSyn degradation.'
- HO-1 levels in cerebrospinal fluid were higher in human smokers.
- They then looked in Parkinson brain samples and HO-1 levels were higher in neurons w/o αSyn pathology.
My take: WOW! I love the hypothesis and the series of experiments performed by this team. For years folks have been pursuing nicotine in animals and in human trials, however maybe low dose CO is the ticket? Will we see a trial? A lot to think about. Science is definitely fun. https://t.co/nDo4xgGvRs #parkinson #alzheimer #smoking

[Amnesty UK @AmnestyUK]

🚨BREAKING: 179 health workers gathered outside St Thomas’ Hospital to demand the release of the 179 Palestinian health workers held in secret detention by Israeli forces.

These brave health workers were taken by Israeli forces while risking their lives to provide medical care.

[Ghassan Abu Sitta, Chair of Conflict Medicine AUB @GhassanAbuSitt1]

BREAKING: The Lancet has just published this article "conservatively" estimating that the death toll in the Gaza genocide could be 186,000 people or more. That's 8% of the population, obliterated. These are apocalyptic figures.
https://t.co/0yOgzBHoyt
https://t.co/0yOgzBHoyt