Selected Publications

First ACADEMIC VALIdated QuestionNaire in Lyme Disease

The General Symptom Questionnaire-30 (GSQ-30): A Brief Measure of Multi-System Symptom Burden in Lyme Disease

Brian A. Fallon1,2*, Nevena Zubcevik3,4, Clair Bennett1,2, Shreya Doshi1,2, Alison W. Rebman5, Ronit Kishon1,2, James R. Moeller1,2, Nadlyne R. Octavien3 and John N. Aucott5

The GSQ-30 is a valid and reliable instrument to assess symptom burden among patients with acute and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome and is sensitive in the detection of change after treatment among patients with erythema migrans. The GSQ-30 should prove useful in clinical and research settings to assess multi-system symptom burden and to monitor change over time. The GSQ-30 may also prove useful in future precision medicine studies as a clinical measure to correlate with disease-relevant biomarkers.

Small Fiber Neuropathy as a Biomarker in Post Treatment Lyme Disease

Association of small fiber neuropathy and post treatment Lyme disease syndrome

Peter Novak, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,1,* Donna Felsenstein, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,2 Charlotte Mao, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,3 Nadlyne R. Octavien, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,4 and Nevena Zubcevik, Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing5

SFN appears to be associated with PTLDS and may be responsible for certain sensory symptoms. In addition, dysautonomia related to SFN and abnormal CBFv also seem to be linked to PTLDS. Reduced orthostatic CBFv can be associated with cerebral hypoperfusion and may lead to cognitive dysfunction. Autonomic failure detected in PTLDS is mild to moderate. SFN evaluation may be useful in PTLDS.

Evaluating TAU PAthology in Brain INjury NFL Players AND Military

Multi-Modal Signatures of Tau Pathology, Neuronal Fiber Integrity, and Functional Connectivity in Traumatic Brain Injury

Dustin W. Wooten, Laura Ortiz-Terán, Nevena Zubcevik, Xiaomeng Zhang, Chuan Huang, Jorge Sepulcre, Nazem Atassi, Keith A. Johnson, Ross D. Zafonte, and Georges El Fakhri

TBI subjects showed greater heterogeneity in [18F]AV-1451 DVR when compared with control subjects. In a subset of TBI subjects, areas with high [18F]AV-1451 binding corresponded with increased FA and diminished white matter tract density in DTI. Functional MRI results exhibited an increase in functional connectivity, particularly among local connections, in the areas where tau aggregates were more prevalent. In a case series of a diverse group of TBI subjects, brain regions with elevated tau burden exhibited increased functional connectivity as well as decreased white matter integrity. These findings portray molecular, microstructural, and functional corollaries of TBI that spatially coincide and can be measured in the living human brain using noninvasive neuroimaging techniques.

Dr. Zubcevik’s research and innovative accomplishments have spearheaded change in invisible illnesses. Her peer-reviewed publications shed light on issues from brain injury pathophysiology to biomarkers of chronic tick borne illness and disruptive change in how we discover in medicine.

In the Popular Media

Purist Feature

Purist founder Cristina Cuomo sat down with Lyme disease expert Dr. Nevena Zubcevik of Harvard and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness to discuss the rise of Lyme disease.

NPR Feature on Lyme Disease

Dr. Nevena Zubcevik is a brain injury researcher and co-director of the new Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, which focuses on treating the long-term effects of Lyme disease. She is also an instructor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician at Spalding and Massachusetts General Hospital. We spoke to her in August 2016 about her work and we are replaying a shorter version of that program below. 

Healthy KIDS BLOG

According to experts, it’s time that parents start thinking of tick prevention the way we do sun protection or hand washing. For those of us who grew up thinking that the little bugs were nothing more than an icky nuisance, taking daily measures against ticks is a hard new habit to start. But Nevena Zubcevik, D.O., an attending physician at Harvard Medical School and the Co-Director of The Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, has generously shared these easy-to-follow guidelines for keeping kids safe from ticks this summer and beyond.