DrBarry Seemungal, PhD FRCP

Biography

I am a consultant neurologist specialising in disorders of balance, spatial orientation, and self-motion perception. Since November 2020, I have been Head of the Centre for Vestibular Neurology at Imperial College London.

Following my PhD in Vestibular Neuroscience at UCL (MRC Human Movement and Balance Unit; supervisors: Profs Bronstein and Gresty; brain stimulation from Prof John Rothwell), I held an Academy of Medical Sciences/Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellowship.

The main novelty of my scientific track record lies in treating vestibular symptoms not simply as labyrinthine or ocular-motor phenomena, but as brain-network disorders of self-motion perception causing imbalance and spatial disorientation. The highest-impact contribution is the formulation and clinical demonstration of vestibular agnosia, particularly in TBI, but also in neurodegeneration and ageing, with implications for missed diagnosis, imbalance, falls and recovery.

Our research programme in vestibular dysfunction after traumatic brain injury (TBI) concerns defining the brain-network mechanisms that drive postural imbalance, falls, and impaired recovery, and addressing why vestibular disorders are frequently under-recognised in TBI. Our work integrates advanced vestibular testing, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and computational approaches to identify clinically actionable phenotypes and scalable diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

In movement disorders, we have a UKRI- and charity-funded collaboration with Dr Yen Tai assessing the use of spinal cord stimulation for gait freezing in Parkinson's Disease and with Drs Bain and Ciocca looking at vestibular consequences of thalamic MRI-guided focused ultrasound.

Space vestiblular physiology includes modulating spatial orientation and motion sickness with non-invasive deep brain stimulation (together with Toby Ellmers, Nir Grossman and Paul Strutton).

I am President of the BSNO (British society of Neuro-Otology), co-chair of the EAN (European Academy of Neurology) neuro-otology/ophthalmology scientific panel and am a member of the Bárány Society Classification OverSight Committee (COSC), having led a position paper on Cervical Dizziness, co-authored the Vestibular Migraine classification and am currently leading an international panel developing a classification paper for vestibular agnosia.

Selected publications

Seemungal BM, Ahmad H, Carmona S, Corrado M, Froment Tilikete C, Harrington-Benton N, Helmchen C, Kaski D, Kim JS, Kheradmand A, Khetarpal A, Kothari S, Rust HM, Ryan C, Shaikh AG, Welgampola MS, Zwergal A, Tarnutzer AA. Time to Include Vestibular Neurology as a Core Competency for Neurology Trainees.. Neurol Educ. 2025;4(4):e200257. doi:10.1212/NE9.0000000000200257. PMID:41050768.5

Ciocca M, Jameel A, Yousif N, Patel N, Smith J, Akgun S, Jones B, Gedroyc W, Nandi D, Tai Y, Seemungal BM (joint senior auth), Bain P. Illusions of Self-Motion during Magnetic Resonance-Guided Focused Ultrasound Thalamotomy for Tremor. Ann Neurol. 2024;96(1):121-132. doi:10.1002/ana.26945. PMID:38709569.

Hadi Z, Pondeca Y, Rust HM, Seemungal BM. Electrophysiological markers of vestibular-mediated self-motion perception - A pilot study.. Brain Res. 2024;1840:149048. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2024.149048. PMID:38844198.

Ciocca M, Hosli S, Hadi Z, Mahmud M, Tai YF, Seemungal BM. Vestibular prepulse inhibition of the human blink reflex.. Clin Neurophysiol. 2024;167:1-11. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2024.08.008. PMID:39232454.

Hadi Z, Mahmud M, Pondeca Y, Calzolari E, Chepisheva M, Smith RM, Rust HM, Sharp DJ, Seemungal BM. The human brain networks mediating the vestibular sensation of self-motion.. J Neurol Sci. 2022;443:120458. doi:10.1016/j.jns.2022.120458. PMID:36332321.

Calzolari E, Chepisheva M, Smith RM, Mahmud M, Hellyer PJ, Tahtis V, Arshad Q, Jolly A, Wilson M, Rust H, Sharp DJ, Seemungal BM. Vestibular agnosia in traumatic brain injury and its link to imbalance. Brain. 2021;144(1):128-143. doi:10.1093/brain/awaa386. PMID:33367536.

Lempert T, Seemungal BM. How to define migraine with brainstem aura?. Brain. 2020;143(5):e35. doi:10.1093/brain/awaa077. PMID:32282900.
Xiang M, Glasauer S, Seemungal BM. Quantitative postural models as biomarkers of balance in Parkinson's disease.. Brain. 2018;141(10):2824-2827. doi:10.1093/brain/awy250. PMID:31367748.

Kaski D, Quadir S, Nigmatullina Y, Malhotra PA, Bronstein AM, Seemungal BM. Temporoparietal encoding of space and time during vestibular-guided orientation. Brain. 2016;139(Pt 2):392-403. doi:10.1093/brain/awv370. PMID:26719385.

Yousif N, Fu RZ, Abou-El-Ela Bourquin B, Bhrugubanda V, Schultz SR, Seemungal BM. Dopamine Activation Preserves Visual Motion Perception Despite Noise Interference of Human V5/MT.. J Neurosci. 2016;36(36):9303-12. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4452-15.2016. PMID:27605607.

Yousif N, Bhatt H, Bain PG, Nandi D, Seemungal BM. The effect of pedunculopontine nucleus deep brain stimulation on postural sway and vestibular perception.. Eur J Neurol. 2016;23(3):668-70. doi:10.1111/ene.12947. PMID:26800658.

Nigmatullina Y, Hellyer PJ, Nachev P, Sharp DJ, Seemungal BM. The neuroanatomical correlates of training-related perceptuo-reflex uncoupling in dancers.. Cereb Cortex. 2015;25(2):554-62. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht266. PMID:24072889.

Seemungal BM, Guzman-Lopez J, Arshad Q, Schultz SR, Walsh V, Yousif N. Vestibular activation differentially modulates human early visual cortex and V5/MT excitability and response entropy.. Cereb Cortex. 2013;23(1):12-9. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr366. PMID:22291031.