Michelle C. Johansen, MD, PhD
Director

Dr. Michelle C. Johansen is an associate professor of neurology and attending physician in the Cerebrovascular Division at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. A board certified general and cerebrovascular neurologist, Dr. Johansen divides her time between research, educational and clinical duties. She is the recipient of multiple grants from the American Heart Association, the American Stroke Association, The National Institute of Health, National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which enables her to continue studying the relationship between the brain and heart health. Research is always ongoing at the Johansen Lab! Dr. Johansen is also an associate faculty member with the Welch Center at the Bloomberg School of Public Health which is dedicated to conducting excellent epidemiologic research. She also serves as an expert reviewer for many top medical journals to include JAMA, Stroke, and Neurology.

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Her academic and scientific pursuits in the area of Cerebrovascular Neurology stem from a fervent desire to be an exceptional care provider and clinical researcher. Her research focus is how changes in the heart (cardiac structure and function) impact neurological outcomes, to include ischemic stroke etiology, subclinical infarcts, brain white matter disease, and vascular contributions to cognitive decline. Dr. Johansen was the first research chief resident while training at the University of Virginia where she realized her own passion for clinical research. Her father’s stroke further solidified her resolve to push the bounds of scientific knowledge in this critical area.

 

Relying on her background in chemistry combined with her PhD in Clinical Investigation from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. Johansen has already established a relationship between cardiac echocardiogram markers and brain changes, such as stroke. She has found similar predictors of brain health using cardiac measures in large epidemiologic cohort studies, such as the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, or the GeneSTAR study. With recent funding from the American Heart Association, and the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Johansen is now using advanced cardiac imaging methods, such as Cardiac CTA and blood-based biomarkers, to diagnose the cause of patient’s strokes and determine the impact of cardiac changes on cognition over time.