Pediatric Functional Neurological Disorders at Yale

Dr. Makhani completed her child neurology training and a formal multiple sclerosis fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto. She also completed a Masters' Degree in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Makhani's clinical and research interests are in pediatric multiple sclerosis and other childhood brain inflammatory diseases. She is funded by NIH and the Charles H Hood Foundation to carry out studies to determine risk factors for clinical multiple sclerosis in asymptomatic children with brain MRI findings suggestive of multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Areti Vassilopoulos is a Pediatric Health Psychologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics & Child Psychology at Yale School of Medicine. Following her PhD, she completed her doctoral internship specializing in Pediatric Psychology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Kennedy Krieger Institute, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship within the Psychiatry Consultation Service and Pediatric Transplant Service at Boston Children's Hospital & Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vassilopoulos is fully embedded within Pediatric Neurology to provide integrated behavioral health care and pediatric health psychology follow-up services. She works with children, teens, and young adults with a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, headaches/migraines, functional neurological symptom disorder (FNSD), muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and related sleep concerns. Dr. Vassilopoulos is the site director for Comfort Ability Program in partnership with Boston Children's Hospital, which is an internationally disseminated workshop for pediatric pain and functional symptom management. Dr. Vassilopoulos is involved in training Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) fellows within the Pediatric Psychology track. She supervises the only advanced pediatric psychology externship at YCSC, accepting 1-2 students a year in pediatric neurology. She also works closely with residents in Pediatric Neurology, and provides lectures in comprehensive pediatric pain management for the Medical Clerkship series through Yale School of Medicine. With regards to research, Dr. Vassilopoulos focuses on quality improvement initiatives, outcomes of clinical interventions, and the relationship between health and behavior pediatric medical ambulatory clinics. Her current ongoing research includes headache, sleep disruption, chronic pain, FNSD/FND, transition from pediatric to adult medical care, and pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis. She is currently co-investigator on the first and only NIH-Funded study for treatment of pediatric FNSD. Dr. Vassilopoulos is the co-chair of the Functional Neurological Disorder Society (FNDS) Psychological Therapy SIG. Dr. Vassilopoulos values community outreach. She often collaborates with non-profit organizations, such as the Muscular Dystrophy Association and CanDo Multiple Sclerosis, for community presentations and online workshops.