Sam Pleasure, MD, PhD

Professor of Neurology
M_Neurology
[email protected]
+1 415 514-4949

Dr. Samuel J. Pleasure is a neurologist who specializes in caring for patients with multiple sclerosis. He also has expertise in caring for patients with epilepsy as well as years of experience in managing a variety of neurological conditions in both clinic and hospital settings.

Pleasure has two main areas of inquiry for his research. He studies processes that regulate early brain development in both normal and diseased situations. He also studies autoimmune forms of meningoencephalitis, where inflammation in specific brain areas causes severe neurologic dysfunction.

Pleasure received his medical degree and a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. He was chief resident during his neurology residency at UCSF, where he then completed a research fellowship in neuroscience.

Pleasure is a fellow of the American Neurological Association and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, American Epilepsy Society, Society for Neuroscience, Society for Developmental Biology and Cajal Club. He has won numerous awards for his research and has received research funding from a wide variety of private, state and federal sources. He has served in leadership roles in national organizations and in the UCSF Department of Neurology.

Pleasure is the Glenn W. Johnson, Jr. Memorial Endowed Chair in Neurology at UCSF.

Publications

Transcobalamin receptor antibodies in autoimmune vitamin B12 central deficiency.

Science translational medicine

Pluvinage JV, Ngo T, Fouassier C, McDonagh M, Holmes BB, Bartley CM, Kondapavulur S, Hurabielle C, Bodansky A, Pai V, Hinman S, Aslanpour A, Alvarenga BD, Zorn KC, Zamecnik C, McCann A, Asencor AI, Huynh T, Browne W, Tubati A, Haney MS, Douglas VC, Louine M, Cree BAC, Hauser SL, Seeley W, Baranzini SE, Wells JA, Spudich S, Farhadian S, Ramachandran PS, Gillum L, Hales CM, Zikherman J, Anderson MS, Yazdany J, Smith B, Nath A, Suh G, Flanagan EP, Green AJ, Green R, Gelfand JM, DeRisi JL, Pleasure SJ, Wilson MR

Detection of High-Risk Paraneoplastic Antibodies Against TRIM9 and TRIM67 proteins.

Annals of neurology

Bartley CM, Ngo TT, Do LD, Zekeridou A, Dandekar R, Muñiz-Castrillo S, Alvarenga BD, Zorn KC, Tubati A, Pinto AL, Browne WD, Hullett PW, Terrelonge M, Schubert RD, Piquet AL, Binxia Y, Montalvo Perero MJ, Kung AF, Mann SA, Shah MP, Geschwind MD, Gelfand JM, DeRisi JL, Pittock SJ, Honnorat J, Pleasure SJ, Wilson MR

Divergent and self-reactive immune responses in the CNS of COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms.

Cell reports. Medicine

Song E, Bartley CM, Chow RD, Ngo TT, Jiang R, Zamecnik CR, Dandekar R, Loudermilk RP, Dai Y, Liu F, Sunshine S, Liu J, Wu W, Hawes IA, Alvarenga BD, Huynh T, McAlpine L, Rahman NT, Geng B, Chiarella J, Goldman-Israelow B, Vogels CBF, Grubaugh ND, Casanovas-Massana A, Phinney BS, Salemi M, Alexander JR, Gallego JA, Lencz T, Walsh H, Wapniarski AE, Mohanty S, Lucas C, Klein J, Mao T, Oh J, Ring A, Spudich S, Ko AI, Kleinstein SH, Pak J, DeRisi JL, Iwasaki A, Pleasure SJ, Wilson MR, Farhadian SF