Dr. Boris A. Vern is an Associate Professor and Director, Section of Narcolepsy and Sleep Disorders in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Vern received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees through a PHS-funded combined degree program from Northwestern University. After serving as a PHS Commissioned Officer at the NIH (NINCDS, 1973-1976), he completed his Neurology Residency training at the George Washington University Medical Center in D.C. in 1979.
Dr. Vern is interested in several aspects of sleep and epilepsy. His recent research showed, for the first time, that there exist slow, continuous, and spontaneous oscillations of both the redox state and the corresponding blood volume during all states of waking and sleep. They also generated other intriguing findings: (1) there is a significant but imperfect synchrony of the above oscillations (<0.3Hz) between homotopic cortical regions, (2) the oscillations are probably of metabolic, rather than hemodynamic origin, and (3) very unusual things occur during REM sleep. Current data strongly suggest a functional link among focally enhanced cortical metabolism, blood flow, and the focal cortical EEG activity at the gamma frequency range (35-75 Hz). This is a new region for experimental study, and his current intent is to combine the statistical analysis of simultaneous EEG and fMRI maps at rest and during normal behavioral state transitions as a first step toward eventually identifying a more informative method of studying aspects of functional neuropathology in real time.
His current clinical areas of particular interest include abnormalities in REM sleep and atypical epilepsy, but he maintains a fairly broad and active approach to clinical neurology as a source of challenge and as a substrate for clinical teaching.
Vern B, Hubbard JI: Reinvestigation of the effect of gammahydroxbutyrate on the sleep cycle of the unrestrained intact cat. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 31 (1971) 573-580.
Vern B, Schuette WH, Whitehouse WC, Mutsuga N: Cortical oxygen consumption and NADH fluorescence during Metrazol seizures in normotensive and hypotensive cats. Exper Neurol 52 (1976) 83-99.
Vern BA, Schuette WH, Thibault LE: (K+) clearance in cortex: a new analytical model. J Neurophysiol 40 (1977) 1015-1023.
Vern B, Schuette WH, Mutsuga N, Whitehouse WC: Effects of ischemia on the removal of extracellular potassium in cat cortex during pentylenetetrazol seizures. Â Epilepsia 20 (1979) 711-724.
Vern B, Schuette WH, Whitehouse WC: Effects of brain stem stimulation on cortical NADH fluorescence and oxygen consumption in the cat. Exper Neurol 71 (1980) 581-600.
Teychenne PF, Bergsrud D, Elton RL, Vern B, Racy A: Bromocriptine: Long-term low-dose therapy in Parkinson's Disease. Clin Neuropharmacol 9 (1986) 138-145.
Vern BA, Schuette WH, Juel VC, Radulovacki M: A simplified method for monitoring the cytochrome aa3 redox state in bilateral cortical areas of unanesthetized cats. Brain Research 415 (1987) 188-193.
Vern BA, Danon MJ, Hanlon K: Hypokalemic periodic paralysis with unusual responses to acetazolamide and sympathomimetics. J Neurol Sci 81 (1987) 159-172.
Vern BA, Schuette WH, Leheta B, Radulovacki M, Juel V: Low frequency oscillation of cortical oxidative metabolism in waking and sleep. Cereb Blood Flow Metab 8 (1988) 215-226.
Vern BA, Leheta BJ, Juel VC, LaGuardia J, Graupe P, Scuette WH. Interhemispheric synchrony of slow oscillations of cortical blood volume and cytochrome aa3 redox state in unanesthetized rabbits. Brain Research, 775 (1997) 233-239.
U.S. Modafinil in Narcolepsy Multicenter Study Group. Modafinil for the treatment of pathological somnolence in narcolepsy. Ann Neurol, 43 (1998) 88-97.
Vern BA, Leheta BJ, Juel VC, LaGuardia J, Graupe P, Schuette WH: Slow oscillations of cytochrome oxidase redox state and blood volume in unanesthetized cat and rabbit cortex: interhemispheric synchrony. Adv Exp Med Biol 454 (1998) 561-570.
Graupe D, Vern B: On the inter-relations between artificial and physiological neural networks. Neurol Res, 23 (2001) 482-488.