Dr Zandi was an author on the encephalitis lethargica paper, that trawled through detailed notes, made a hundred years ago when doctors did not have enough tech to skip all that observatio,n and reporting- but were meticulous with what blood tests they had available.
Also they used less synthesised drugs and more botanical drugs (dosage standardised).
Dr Zandi took up his post at the Neurology Square in 2019, so he was not there in the bad old days where I heard some Professor gave some people a hard time, I think Prof Pinching
His Orcid Bio CV only gives his current job, no previous jobs listed (linked in a post above). His post began as a neurology consultant at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, where he:
- runs an auto-immune encephalitis and neuro-immunology clinic, and
- co-chairs the weekly UK National Queen Square encephalitis professionals meeting
Autoimmune encephalitis eg associated with NMDAR, or LGI1, or related auto-antibodies is a particular concern. I share it. I must read his solo paper on neuro-myotonia. It sounds like what I call overcontracted muscle. I've been wondering what acetylcholine has to do with it.
His broader research concerns are central and peripheral neuro-immunology; CNS vascultis, amyloid-related angiopathy-related inflammation; neuro-psychiatric involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus; neurological effect of systemic infection incl. Covid-19 and its related conditions; T-cell biology of auto-immune encepalitis; neuro-immunology of catatonia ...
... and neuro-immunology of CNS disorders as seen in the Neuro-immunology lab serving UCL & UCLH; also the the neurological and psychiatric complications of - and role of inflammation in - Covid-19 (with a Banerjee); and the role of inflammation in neuro-degenerative disease and !!!!! in psychiatric disease:
- supported by UCL UCLH NIHR BRC (Biomedical Research Centre).
He does sound distinctly bio-medical (if the neuro-psychiatry is legitimate). So far he is not saying maybe the mind manifests as physical symptoms. Rather vice versa.
His training was redoubtable, including a grounding in veterinary science which takes matters more seriously than human health service can. He did not pursue further the Prof Barry Everitt's initial module in experimental psychology.
He pursued clinical medicine; also neurology at Saltpetriere with Bernard Fontaine (Paris); then in a neuro-science Fellowship with a PhD looking at:
- biomarkers in neuro-psychiatric lupus and NMDAR encephalitis, also in the august laboratories of Professor Angela Vincent (Oxford) and Professor Alisdair Coles (Cambridge). He had various funding; and then ongoing funds from UCL's BioMedical Research Centre
His preliminary, seed funding was to allow a PhD Fellow time to develop work between both Haematology and Neuro-immunology labs, so for salary and consumables about £150,000. That was 2019-2021. Researcher in UCL Biomedical Research Centre when a pandemic struck
He had reached his clinical post there in 2019, just in time and in the right place. He was on twitter.com as /michael_zandi, ID created 2020 in the pandemic. His Author and Researcher IDs were created in 2016. Eventually he was invited to lecture all over the place.
In 2016 he was researching immuno-therapy for patients with psychosis associated with anti-neuronal membrane antibodies, SINAPPS 2.
I think his research post is or was Principal Investigator and Honorary Associate Professor, in the Department of Neuro-inflammation, at the Queens Square Institute of Neurology.
His 2020-2022 research had been funded through the Covid clinical neuroscience study, hosted at the Liverpool and the Kings College Universities, total grant £2,300,000, for neuroscience, not messing about with psychiatry. UCL was paid per patient.
So 2020-2022, as or under one of the co-applicants, he was urgently seeking to understand the biological !!!! causes of both covid complications impacting the brain in hospital - both the neurological and the neuro-psychiatric complications (I think published in Brain
Some Centre for Doctoral Training in Additive Manufacturing was also involved in funding it; sub-type Covid-CNS (central nervous system), people were very worried. Brains attacked. I doubt Simon Wessley's theory of mass hysteria got a look in, except in conspiracy videos
A scan of his other research indicates that he is well placed to make differential diagnosis of the psychiatric consequence of inflaming a brain eg in encephalitis and in psychosis, and as distinct from the neurological consequence - and neuro-psychiatric consequence whatever that is
