Background
Marsden was born in Croydon in 1938.
Marsden was born in Croydon in 1938.
He did an intercalated Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in 1960 on the subject of pigmentation of the substantia nigra. He obtained his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1963, and became a member of the Royal College Physicians (Membership of the Royal College of Physicians) in 1965.
He was described as ‘arguably the leading academic neurologist and neuroscientist of his generation in the United Kingdom’. He trained in medicine at Street Thomas" Hospital London. He was a lecturer at Street Thomas’ Hospital for two years before proceeding to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery as a senior resident house physician.
In 1970 he became Honorary Consultant Neurologist to the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals and at the King"s College Hospital, and also Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry.
He became joint Chair of Neurology at the Institute of Psychiatry and Kings College Hospital medical school in 1972. He succeed Roger Gilliat as Chair of Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square in 1987, and became the Dean of Neurology eight years later.
He had just started a one year sabbatical at the National Institute of Health at Bethesda for a detailed study of apraxia when he died suddenly from an unsuspected congenital coronary anomaly at the age of 60 years. Marsden’s major works were in movement disorders.
His interest in this field started with his medical school thesis which was a comparative study of mammalian substantia nigra.
After graduation his initial interest was the neurophysiological study of parkinsonian tremor. His later contributions include the complications of levodopa. The motor control physiology of dystonia, myoclonus, and essential tremor.
The discovery of the mitochondrial defect in the substantia nigra in Parkinson"s disease.
And the use of fluorodopa positron emission tomography ( Positron Emission Tomography) to study the growth of embryonic tissue transplants in Parkinson’s disease. He described several neurological conditions such as painful legs/moving toes, cortical and corticospinal myoclonus, and primary writing tremor.
He was instrumental in establishing dystonia as an organic disease rather than a hysterical condition, and made a major contribution to its classification. He established the United Kingdom Parkinson"s Disease Society´s brain bank.
Marsden collaborated at King"s College with Peter Jenner and John Rothwell.