BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Arthur S. Walters, M.D. completed his medical degree at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, his Neurology Residency at Downstate Medical Center Brooklyn, NY and subsequently his Movement Disorder Fellowship at the Neurological Institute, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, NY, NY. He served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Neurology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and then as full Professor of Neuroscience at the Seton Hall University School of Graduate Medical Education, both in New Jersey, from 1998-2008. In 2008 he joined the Vanderbilt faculty as Professor of Neurology and as Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Disorders Center. .

She is board certified in both Clinical Neurophysiology and Sleep Medicine, and serves as an editorial board member and ad hoc reviewer for a number of professional journal and NIH study sections.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Originally trained in Movement Disorders and secondarily in Sleep Disorders, Dr. Walters has focused his career and research on the sleep-related movement disorders. He co-edited the first book on sleep-related movement disorders in 2003. He was chosen by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to head up the committee for formulating the new diagnostic clinical criteria for the sleep-related movement disorders (International Classification of Sleep Disorders 2005) and the committee for formulating the new polysomnographic scoring criteria for the sleep-related movement disorders (The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events 2007).

From 1992-1998 he helped found and was the first chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation (RLSF), a nation-wide support group for RLS patients and their families. He then served as an active member of the board for a number of years thereafter. From 1993 to 2007 he founded and served as the first chair of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group, comprised of over 130 physicians and scientists from 17 countries dedicated to research on Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Periodic Limb Movements in Sleep. Under his leadership, universal clinical criteria for the diagnosis of RLS were established and the first validated scale for the scoring of RLS severity was created and validated. This scale is now used as the primary outcome measure in all the major pharmaceutical company studies of RLS.

In the academic year 2003/2004 he was named “Researcher of the Year in Medicine” for Seton Hall University, one of 4 such awards given by the University that year for excellence in research in (1) Medicine, (2) The Arts, (3) The Humanities, and (4) the Social and Physical Sciences.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Peer reviewed articles:

Walters A, Hening W, Kavey N, Chokroverty S, Gidro-Frank S. A double blind randomized cross-over trial of bromocriptine and placebo in restless legs syndrome. Annals of Neurology 24:455-458, 1988.

Walters A, Hening W, Chokroverty S. Videotape recognition of idiopathic restless legs syndrome. Movement Disorders 6:105-110, 1991.

Walters AS, Wagner ML, Hening WA, Grasing K, Mills R, Chokroverty S, Kavey N. Successful treatment of the idiopathic restless legs syndrome in a randomized double blind trial of oxycodone versus placebo. Sleep 16:327-332, 1993.

Walters AS. Group Organizer and Correspondent International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group. Towards a better definition of the restless legs syndrome. Movement Disorders 10:634-642, 1995.

Walters AS. Group Organizer and Correspondent: The International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group. Validation of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Sudy Group Rating Scale for Restless Legs Syndrome. Sleep Medicine 4: 121-132; 2003.

Rajaram S, Walters AS, England S, Mehta DD, Nizam F. Some patients with “growing pains” may actually have Restless Legs Syndrome. Sleep 27: 767-773; 2004.

Walters AS. Clinical Identification of the simple sleep-related movement disorders. Chest 131: 1260-1266; 2007.

Walters AS, Lavigne G, Hening W, Picchietti DL, Allen RP, Chokroverty S, Kushida CA, Bliwise
DL, Mahowald MW, Schenck CH, Ancoli-Israels S. The scoring of Movements in Sleep: An evidence based review by the Movement Disorder task force of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 3: 155-167; 2007.

Book chapters:

Chokroverty S, Hening W, Walters A, eds. Sleep and Movement Disorders, 1st Edition, USA, Butterworth Heinemann, pp 1-546, 2003.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University

A-0118 Medical Center North
Nashville, TN, 37232-2551
Appointments: (615) 322-4000