Neurologist. Researcher. Author. Musician.
It turns out these are all the same thing.
I'm a neurologist. I've spent my career studying what happens when the brain goes wrong—cognitive disorders, dementia, migraine—and trying to figure out what to do about it.
That clinical work eventually led me somewhere unexpected. If we want to protect the brain across a lifespan, the evidence keeps pointing to the same thing: lifelong learning. The brain that keeps adapting is the brain that stays healthy.
But here's the problem. Most people stop learning hard things as they get older—and it's not because their brains have declined. It's because they don't know how to learn. Nobody ever taught them.
Knowing how to learn is the most important skill there is—for realizing your potential and for keeping your brain healthy. That realization changed the direction of my work.
Research & Clinical Work
My research has focused on Alzheimer's disease, cognitive aging, and what protects or accelerates decline. Clinically, I've treated patients with memory disorders, dementia, and complex headache conditions.
The question that runs through all of it: what does the brain need to stay functional? The answer keeps coming back to learning. Your brain needs it like your body needs movement.
Brainjo & Adult Learning
Brainjo started as an experiment. I wanted to see if learning science could actually help adults who'd given up on music—whether we could systematically remove the obstacles that typically cause people to quit.
The experiment grew. Brainjo now reaches thousands of adult learners around the world. And the results keep confirming the same thing: when adults struggle to learn, the problem is almost never their brain. It's that nobody taught them how.
Music
I've played music most of my life—banjo, guitar, fiddle, piano, various stringed things. The music and the neuroscience ended up being the same inquiry from different angles.
Understanding how the brain learns made me a better musician. Being a musician gave me a laboratory for testing ideas about learning. The performance work includes several projects: Wandering South, Chillgrass Project, and the Georgia Jays.
Writing & Other Work
I write about the brain, learning, and human capability. The books include Anyone Can Play Music, The Migraine Miracle, and Keto for Migraine. The Genius and the Impostor is forthcoming in August 2026.
I also extend these ideas in more conversational formats through the Better Brain Fitness podcast and my newsletter, Brains, Banjos, & Beyond.