Ramon Diaz-Arrastia

Ramon Diaz-Arrastia is an American neurologist and clinical investigator. He is the John McCrae Dickson, MD Presidential Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and Attending Neurologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Diaz-Arrastia's research is focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in neuronal injury and neurodegeneration. He is a Zenith Fellow of the Alzheimer's Association.

Education In 1979, Diaz-Arrastia received a Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston, Texas. He went on to earn a PhD in Biochemistry from the Baylor College of Medicine in 1986, followed by a Doctor of Medicine degree from the same institution in 1988. In 2016, he left Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences to join University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine as Presidential Professor of Neurology.

As of July 2016, he has been holding concurrent appointments as an attending neurologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. His group showed that phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibition reverses part of the deficit in cerebrovascular reactivity after TBI, and constitutes a promising therapy for traumatic cerebrovascular injury.

Diaz-Arrastia's research on post-traumatic epilepsy explored the prevalence, risk factors, clinical features, and management options of epilepsy that arise as a result of a traumatic brain injury. His research on surgical outcomes in Post-Traumatic Epilepsy revealed that surgery could be a viable option for reducing seizure frequency or severity, even in cases where other treatments have been unsuccessful.

In his exploration of new ways to diagnose mild traumatic brain injuries by testing for certain proteins in both the blood and small particles released by brain cells, also known as extracellular vesicles, his work revealed that these two sources of protein information i.e. (plasma and brain-derived extracellular vesicles) provide independent diagnostic information and when combined, accurately diagnose mild traumatic brain injuries.

Awards and honors 2006 – Zenith Fellow, Alzheimer's Association

Selected articles