Professional background
Dr Ashwani Jha is a consultant neurologist with specialist expertise in general diagnostic neurology, movement disorders and botulinum toxin treatment for dystonia and hemifacial spasm. He qualified from the University of Edinburgh in 2003 and trained in general medicine and neurology across several major London centres, completing his specialist neurology training at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, in 2015. He subsequently undertook fellowship training specialising in movement disorders and epilepsy at Queen Square before being appointed as a consultant in 2017.
During his training he completed a PhD in neuroscience and neurology, focusing on advanced imaging in Parkinson’s disease. He maintains an active research interest in the use of artificial intelligence to improve diagnosis, prediction and personalised care in neurology, and has published and presented his work nationally and internationally.
He runs general neurology, movement disorder and ultrasound-guided botulinum toxin clinics at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and also practises at Homerton Hospital, where he leads an integrated movement disorder service that brings together neurology, physiotherapy and other medical teams to support coordinated, personalised care.
Specialties
Research interests
His research focuses on the core capabilities needed to turn complex clinical data into practical tools that improve neurological care. His interests include:
- Advanced imaging and quantitative clinical measures of neurological function, particularly in Parkinson’s disease
- AI for integrating multi-modal data to support diagnosis, prognosis and personalised treatment
- Development and testing of medical devices to enable precision neurology and track disease more accurately
He teaches widely in neurology, including advanced training in movement disorders and botulinum toxin injections for dystonia and hemifacial spasm. He is an active member of the International Parkinson’s disease and Movement Disorders Society.
Publications
- Elmalem, M. S., Nachev, P., & Jha, A. (2024). Graphs and the idiographic brain. Brain. 47(3):752-754.
- Jha, A., Espay, A. J., & Lees, A. J. (2023). Digital biomarkers in Parkinson's disease: missing the forest for the trees?. Movement Disorders Clinical Practice. doi:10.1002/mdc3.13746
- Elmalem, M. S., Moody, H., Ruffle, J. K., de Schotten, M. T., Haggard, P., Diehl, B., . . . Jha, A. (2023). A framework for focal and connectomic mapping of transiently disrupted brain function. Communications Biology, 6(1):430. doi:10.1038/s42003-023-04787-1
- Jha, A., Diehl, B., Strange, B., Miserocchi, A., Chowdhury, F., McEvoy, A. W., & Nachev, P. (2022). Orienting to fear under transient focal disruption of the human amygdala. Brain.146: 135–148.
- Jha, A., Oh, C., Hesdorffer, D., Diehl, B., Devore, S., Brodie, M. J., . . . Devinsky, O. (2021). Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy: A Personalized Prediction Tool. Neurology. 96(21):e2627-e2638
- Jha, A., Menozzi, E., Oyekan, R., Latorre, A., Mulroy, E., Schreglmann, S. R., . . . Bhatia, K. P. (2020). The CloudUPDRS smartphone software in Parkinson's study: cross-validation against blinded human raters. NPJ Parkinsons Dis, 6(1), 36.
- Jha, A., & Nachev, P. (2020). Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Sensing Tourette's Tics Away. Curr Biol, 30(12), R698-R700.
- Jha, A., Teotonio, R., Smith, A. -L., Bomanji, J., Dickson, J., Diehl, B., . . . Nachev, P. (2020). Metabolic lesion-deficit mapping of human cognition. Brain, 143(3), 877-890.
- Jha, A., & Nachev, P. (2019). Generating truth from error: insights from neurodevelopmental disorders. Brain. 142(1), 11-14.
- Jha, A., Litvak, V., Taulu, S., Thevathasan, W., Hyam, J. A., Foltynie, T., . . . Brown, P. (2017). Functional Connectivity of the Pedunculopontine Nucleus and Surrounding Region in Parkinson's Disease. Cereb Cortex, 27(1), 54-67.
- Jha, A., Diehl, B., Scott, C., McEvoy, A. W., & Nachev, P. (2016). Reversed Procrastination by Focal Disruption of Medial Frontal Cortex. Current Biology. 26:2898-2898.
- Jha, A., Nachev, P., Barnes, G., Husain, M., Brown, P., & Litvak, V. (2015). The Frontal Control of Stopping. Cerebral Cortex, 25(11).
- Litvak, V., Jha, A., Eusebio, A., Oostenveld, R., Foltynie, T., Limousin, P., . . . Brown, P. (2011). Resting oscillatory cortico-subthalamic connectivity in patients with Parkinson's disease. Brain, 134, 359-374.
- Jha A, Brown P. (2010). Paradoxes in Parkinson’s Disease and other Movement Disorders. In Kapur N, Pascual-Leone A, Ramachandran VS, editors. The Paradoxical Brain. Cambridge University Press