Clinical Neurocardiology Section - Division of Intramural Research

David S. Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Investigator

Laboratory Staff

Research Interests

Dr. Goldstein's research interests are in catecholamine systems, clinical autonomic disorders, and scientific integrative medicine. The Clinical Neurocardiology Section, which he founded and directs, carries out mainly patient-oriented research about disorders of brain regulation of the cardiovascular system. The research emphasizes diseases of the autonomic nervous system in which the sympathetic nervous system or catecholamines play prominent roles, such as autonomic failure syndromes and neurogenetic conditions featuring abnormal catecholamine synthesis or metabolism. The Section operates a renowned Clinical Neurochemistry Laboratory for assays of levels of catecholamines and their metabolites. Current research of the Section focuses on biomarkers and mechanisms of central and peripheral catecholaminergic denervation in Parkinson disease and related disorders.

A major new study by the Clinical Neurocardiology Section is on biomarkers of risk of Parkinson disease (PD). We call this the PDRisk study (NIH Protocol 09-N-0010). There are two main purposes of this study. The first purpose is to determine whether people who have characteristics that may be risk factors for PD have objective evidence—“biomarkers”—that the disease process is actually going on. The evidence we are looking for is loss of nerves and nerve cells that use particular chemicals, called catecholamines. PD patients typically have a loss of nerves and nerve cells that use the catecholamines dopamine and norepinephrine as chemical messengers. The second purpose is to determine whether people who have abnormal “biomarkers” actually develop PD during several years of follow-up.

For more information about our PDRisk study please visit our Protocol-specific website, https://pdrisk.ninds.nih.gov.

Clinical Protocols

• Clinical Laboratory Evaluation of Primary Chronic Autonomic Failure  03-N-0004
• Biomarkers of Risk of Parkinson Disease  09-N-0010

Selected Recent Publications

• Goldstein DS.
  Adrenaline and the Inner World: An Introduction to Scientific Integrative Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006
• Goldstein DS, Eisenhofer G, Kopin IJ.
  Sources and significance of plasma levels of catechols and their metabolites in humans, J Pharmacol Exp Ther, 2003, vol. 305, pp. 800-811.
• Goldstein DS, Smith LJ
  The NDRF Handbook for Patients with Dysautonomias, Futura, 2002
• Goldstein DS
  The Autonomic Nervous System in Health and Disease, Taylor & Francis, 2001
• Goldstein DS, Holmes C, Cannon RO III, Eisenhofer G, Kopin IJ
  Sympathetic cardioneuropathy in dysautonomias, N Engl J Med, 1997, vol. 336, pp. 696-702.
• Goldstein DS
  Stress, Catecholamines, and Cardiovascular Disease, Oxford Univ. Press, 1995

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