Dr. Brashear is the Principal Investigator at Wake Forest University Health Sciences.
Allison Brashear, MD, MBA is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC (2005-present). She holds the Walter C. Teagle Chair of Neurology.
Dr. Brashear is the principal clinician to describe a unique genetic form of dystonia-parkinsonism, Rapid-Onset Dystonia-Parkinsonism (RDP). Her group reported the genetic mechanism responsible for RDP (mutations in the Na/K ATPase alpha 3 subunit) in Neuron in July 2004. In 2008, NINDS funded her group to study these mutations in the ATP1A3 gene in more depth (R01 NS058949; PI: Brashear). This work was refunded in April, 2015 for five years. The results are published in Lancet Neurology, Brain, Neuron, Acta Neuropathologica, Neurology, Annals of Neurology and Movement Disorders. In 2018, Dr. Brashear’s team was added as the Wake Forest NeuroNext Clinical Site, one of 25 sites in the
NINDS funded clinical trial network. Dr. Brashear’s total NIH funding as PI is $7, 000, 000. In 2016 Dr. Brashear was appointed a member of the NINDS NST-1 (K awards) study section.
Dr. Brashear is the lead principal investigator in many multi-center trials for the treatment of cervical dystonia and spasticity. She is the lead author on the pivotal paper, “Intramuscular Injection of Botulinum Toxin for the Treatment of Wrist and Finger Spasticity after a Stroke”, published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Her work with botulinum toxin has been published in Lancet Neurology, Neurology, Movement Disorders and Archives of PMR. She is the Editor of only comprehensive text on spasticity management, Spasticity: Diagnosis and Treatment.
Dr. Brashear completed the Harvard School of Public Health Leadership program for physicians in 2004, and in 2007 she finished the year-long national program for women leaders, Executive Leadership Academic Medicine (ELAM). In 2014 she was selected as an AAMC Council of Dean’s Fellow. Dr. Brashear earned an MBA from Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in 2012, with additional certification in Health Sector Management.
Dr. Brashear graduated from DePauw University in 1983, Indiana University School of Medicine in 1987 and from Fuqua Business School at Duke University in 2012. She completed her training in Neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine in 1991.