Dr. Avner Thaler has conducted his PhD and residency at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center and has continued on as a senior neurologist at the movement disorders unit. His research interests include structural and functional imaging of individuals at risk of development of Parkinson's disease (PD) using first-degree relatives of LRRK2 and GBA PD patients. To this end, he has published DTI, VBM, cortical thickness and fMRI studies on this unique cohort. In addition, he has studied the clinical phenotype of mutations in the LRRK2 and GBA genes. His time is divided between clinical work and research, and he is currently the lead neurologist in an ongoing genetic study characterizing LRRK2 and GBA-PD and prodromal PD.