Toru Yamashita is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Okayama University Medical School in Japan. He earned his M.D. from Okayama University School of Medicine and later received his Ph.D. from the same university under the guidance of Professor Koji Abe. His primary research interests include stroke, dementia, ALS, and other degenerative disorders. He served as the Director of ISCBFM and currently serves as General Secretary of Vas-Cog Asia, both scientific fields closely related to vascular factors in AD. He received the Japan Stroke Society Young Scholar’s Award and the 2010 Okayama Medical Association Award in 2010.

Dr. Koji Abe has published more than 850 papers on stroke, cerebral blood flow and metabolism, and neurodegenerative diseases. His research interests cover many important fields of neurology, especially in the mechanism of ischemic brain damage, gene and stem cell therapy, neuroprotection, and neuroimaging. He was the past president of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism (CBFM) and organized the World CBFM meeting in Osaka in 2007 and the Japan Neurology Meeting, where more than 8,000 neurologists joined in Okayama City in 2020. He also served as president of both Vas-Cog Japan and Vas-Cog Asia societies. He is now the Head of the National Center Hospital of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP) in Tokyo and manages many national projects for neurology, psychiatry, basic neurosciences, and clinical studies. He has been at the forefront of acute stroke treatment and has been involved in clinical and research work, including the development of brain protection therapy using the antioxidant edaravone, which is now used around the world. Brain Protection Therapy is a treatment to protect brain cells from necrosis due to stroke and has spread from Japan to Europe, China, Korea, and the United States. It was the first in the world to be covered by insurance for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as well as stroke.