Bio

Bio


Dr. Gold is a board-certified general neurologist who is fellowship-trained in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders in hospitalized patients. He cares for a broad range of patients, including individuals with seizures, central nervous system infections, autoimmune diseases, headaches, neuromuscular conditions, and neurological complications of cancer. Dr. Gold has a particular clinical interest in the inpatient diagnosis of uncommon or rare neurological disorders. He directs quality improvement for the department of Neurology and is actively involved in projects to improve the experience of hospitalized patients with neurological conditions at Stanford. His primary research interest focuses on enhancing the communication skills of neurology residents. He is the fellowship director of the Stanford Neurohospitalist Fellowship.

More information on the Stanford Neurohospitalist Program can be found here: https://med.stanford.edu/neurology/divisions/neurohospitalist.html

Clinical Focus


  • Neurology
  • Neurohospitalist

Academic Appointments


Administrative Appointments


  • Chair, Neurology Quality Council (2017 - Present)
  • Physician Improvement Leader for Improvement Capability Project, Department of Neurology (2017 - Present)
  • Chair, Neurohospitalist Section of the American Academy of Neurology (2017 - 2019)
  • Member, H1 MD-RN Unit Council (2016 - Present)
  • Member, Stanford Quality, Patient Safety, & Effectiveness Comittee (QPSEC) (2016 - Present)
  • Member, Neurology Professional Practice Evaluation Committee (2016 - Present)

Honors & Awards


  • Neurology Medical Student Clerkship Teaching Award, Stanford Department of Neurology (2018)
  • Neurology Medical Student Clerkship Teaching Award, Stanford Department of Neurology (2017)
  • Lysia Forno Award for Excellence in Teaching Neurology Residents, Stanford Department of Neurology (2017)
  • Rathmann Family Foundation Medical Education Fellowship in Patient-Centered Care, Stanford (2017-2018)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations


  • Member, American Academy of Neurology (2009 - Present)
  • Member, Neurohospitalist Society (2014 - Present)

Professional Education


  • Medical Education:Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (2011) NJ
  • Fellowship, University of California, San Francisco, Neurohospitalist Fellowship (2016)
  • Board Certification: Neurology, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (2015)
  • Residency, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, Neurology (2015)
  • Internship, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, Medicine (2012)
  • MS, Georgetown University, Physiology (2006)
  • AB, Princeton University, Psychology (2005)

Publications

All Publications


  • Expanding Access to Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Patients With Cardiac Rhythm Devices. JAMA neurology Culbertson, C. J., Gold, C. A. 2018

    View details for DOI 10.1001/jamaneurol.2018.1651

    View details for PubMedID 29971323

  • Video NeuroImages: Paraneoplastic spinal myoclonus associated with Caspr2 antibodies. Neurology Hines, H., Murray, N. M., Ahmad, S., Jaradeh, S., Gold, C. A. 2018; 90 (14): 660–61

    View details for DOI 10.1212/WNL.0000000000005265

    View details for PubMedID 29610228

  • Young Man With Paraparesis. Annals of emergency medicine Rider, E., Gold, C. A. 2018; 72 (3): e19–e20

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2018.03.043

    View details for PubMedID 30144875

  • Teaching NeuroImages: Myeloperoxidase-anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive hypertrophic pachymeningitis. Neurology Culbertson, C. J., Lummus, S. C., Gold, C. A. 2017; 89 (21): e253

    View details for DOI 10.1212/WNL.0000000000004673

    View details for PubMedID 29158303

  • Anticipating the Challenges of Zika Virus and the Incidence of Guillain-Barré Syndrome. JAMA neurology Gold, C. A., Josephson, S. A. 2016

    View details for DOI 10.1001/jamaneurol.2016.1268

    View details for PubMedID 27272118

  • Electrographic Correlates of Plateau Waves in Patients With Leptomeningeal Metastases. The Neurohospitalist Gold, C. A., Odom, N., Srinivasan, S., Schaff, L., Haggiagi, A., Odia, Y. 2016; 6 (4): 161–66

    Abstract

    We describe video electroencephalography (video-EEG) correlates of transient neurological attacks due to plateau waves-paroxysmal elevations in intracranial pressure-in patients with leptomeningeal metastases. We identified 3 patients with leptomeningeal metastases, intracranial hypertension, and transient neurological attacks captured on video-EEG without evidence of seizures or epileptiform activity. We identified all clinical events on video and reviewed the corresponding EEG data for evidence of abnormalities. All 3 patients had mild to moderate slowing and 2 had frontal intermittent rhythmic delta activity during background EEG recording. There were 33 clinical events recorded and stereotyped for each patient. All 33 events were associated with an increase in delta range slowing of ≥30% compared to the background. This abnormality started ≤2 minutes before the onset of clinical symptoms and persisted for minutes after clinical resolution. This study is the first to carefully describe the electrographic correlates of transient neurological attacks due to plateau waves in patients with leptomeningeal metastasis. Clinical attacks were consistently associated with a possible EEG signature of diffuse delta range slowing. Future studies can validate the sensitivity and specificity of these EEG changes as a prognostic and/or response biomarker in patients with leptomeningeal metastases with or without intracranial hypertension.

    View details for DOI 10.1177/1941874416648194

    View details for PubMedID 27695598

  • Unplanned Transfers from Hospital Wards to the Neurological Intensive Care Unit NEUROCRITICAL CARE Gold, C. A., Mayer, S. A., Lennihan, L., Claassen, J., Willey, J. Z. 2015; 23 (2): 159-165

    Abstract

    The aim of this study is to evaluate the characteristics of unplanned transfers of adult patients from hospital wards to a neurological intensive care unit (NICU).We retrospectively reviewed consecutive unplanned transfers from hospital wards to the NICU at our institution over a 3-year period. In-hospital mortality rates were compared between patients readmitted to the NICU ("bounce-back transfers") and patients admitted to hospital wards from sources other than the NICU who were then transferred to the NICU ("incident transfers"). We also measured clinical characteristics of transfers, including source of admission and indication for transfer.A total of 446 unplanned transfers from hospital wards to the NICU occurred, of which 39% were bounce-back transfers. The in-hospital mortality rate associated with all unplanned transfers to the NICU was 17% and did not differ significantly between bounce-back transfers and incident transfers. Transfers to the NICU within 24 h of admission to a floor service accounted for 32% of all transfers and were significantly more common for incident transfers than bounce-back transfers (39 vs. 21%, p = .0002). Of patients admitted via the emergency department who had subsequent incident transfers to the NICU, 50% were transferred within 24 h of admission.Unplanned transfers to an NICU were common and were associated with a high in-hospital mortality rate. Quality improvement projects should target the triage process and transitions of care to the hospital wards in order to decrease unplanned transfers of high-risk patients to the NICU.

    View details for DOI 10.1007/s12028-015-0123-z

    View details for Web of Science ID 000360700700003

    View details for PubMedID 25680399

  • Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome in a patient with an anaplastic oligoastrocytoma JOURNAL OF NEURO-ONCOLOGY Gold, C. A., Lassman, A. B., Odia, Y. 2015; 123 (2): 315-316

    View details for DOI 10.1007/s11060-015-1783-4

    View details for Web of Science ID 000355632800015

    View details for PubMedID 25864100

  • New-onset seizures in two adults with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY Gold, C. A., Sheth, S. J., Agarwal, S., Claassen, J., Foreman, B. 2015; 262 (4): 1063-1065

    View details for DOI 10.1007/s00415-015-7669-8

    View details for Web of Science ID 000353295400034

    View details for PubMedID 25701009

  • Patient page. Driving after a stroke. Neurology Karceski, S., Gold, C. A. 2011; 76 (8): e35-8

    View details for DOI 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182104170

    View details for PubMedID 21339494

  • Discrimination and reliance on conceptual fluency cues are inversely related in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA Wolk, D. A., Gold, C. A., Signoff, E. D., Budson, A. E. 2009; 47 (8-9): 1865-1872

    Abstract

    Prior work suggests that patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) often base their recognition memory decisions on familiarity. It has been argued that conceptual fluency may play an important role in the feeling of familiarity. In the present study we measured the effect of conceptual fluency manipulations on recognition judgments of patients with mild AD and older adult controls. "Easy" and "hard" test conditions were created by manipulating encoding depth and list length to yield high and low discrimination, respectively. When the two participant groups performed identical procedures, AD patients displayed lower discrimination and greater reliance on fluency cues than controls. However, when the discrimination of older adult controls was decreased to the level of AD patients by use of a shallow encoding task, we found that controls reliance on fluency did not statistically differ from AD patients. Furthermore, we found that increasing discrimination using shorter study lists resulted in AD patients decreasing their reliance on fluency cues to a similar extent as controls. These findings support the notion that patients with AD are able to attribute conceptual fluency to prior experience. In addition, these findings suggest that discrimination and reliance on fluency cues may be inversely related in both AD patients and older adult controls.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.02.029

    View details for Web of Science ID 000266701600010

    View details for PubMedID 19428418

  • An evaluation of recollection and familiarity in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment using receiver operating characteristics BRAIN AND COGNITION Ally, B. A., Gold, C. A., Budson, A. E. 2009; 69 (3): 504-513

    Abstract

    There is a need to investigate exactly how memory breaks down in the course of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Examining what aspects of memorial processing remain relatively intact early in the disease process will allow us to develop behavioral interventions and possible drug therapies focused on these intact processes. Several recent studies have worked to understand the processes of recollection and familiarity in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and very mild AD. Although there is general agreement that these patient groups are relatively unable to use recollection to support veridical recognition decisions, there has been some question as to how well these patients can use familiarity. The current study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and a depth of processing manipulation to understand the effect of MCI and AD on the estimates of recollection and familiarity. Results showed that patients with MCI and AD were impaired in both recollection and familiarity, regardless of the depth of encoding. These results are discussed in relation to disease pathology and in the context of recent conflicting evidence as to whether familiarity remains intact in patients with MCI. The authors highlight differences in stimuli type and task difficulty as possibly modulating the ability of these patients to successfully use familiarity in support of memorial decisions.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.11.003

    View details for Web of Science ID 000264220800008

    View details for PubMedID 19101064

  • The picture superiority effect in patients with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA Ally, B., Gold, C. A., Budson, A. E. 2009; 47 (2): 595-598

    Abstract

    The fact that pictures are better remembered than words has been reported in the literature for over 30 years. While this picture superiority effect has been consistently found in healthy young and older adults, no study has directly evaluated the presence of the effect in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Clinical observations have indicated that pictures enhance memory in these patients, suggesting that the picture superiority effect may be intact. However, several studies have reported visual processing impairments in AD and MCI patients which might diminish the picture superiority effect. Using a recognition memory paradigm, we tested memory for pictures versus words in these patients. The results showed that the picture superiority effect is intact, and that these patients showed a similar benefit to healthy controls from studying pictures compared to words. The findings are discussed in terms of visual processing and possible clinical importance.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.10.010

    View details for Web of Science ID 000263815300034

    View details for PubMedID 18992266

  • Memory loss in Alzheimer's disease: implications for development of therapeutics. Expert review of neurotherapeutics Gold, C. A., Budson, A. E. 2008; 8 (12): 1879-1891

    Abstract

    Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease marked by a constellation of cognitive disturbances, the earliest and most prominent being impaired episodic memory. Episodic memory refers to the memory system that allows an individual to consciously retrieve a previously experienced item or episode of life. Many recent studies have focused on characterizing how AD pathology impacts particular aspects of episodic memory and underlying mental and neural processes. This review summarizes the findings of those studies and discusses the effects of current and promising treatments for AD on episodic memory. The goal of this review is to raise awareness of the strides that cognitive neuroscientists have made in understanding intact and dysfunctional memory. Knowledge of the specific memorial processes that are impaired in AD may be of great value to basic scientists developing novel therapies and to clinical researchers assessing the efficacy of those therapies.

    View details for DOI 10.1586/14737175.8.12.1879

    View details for PubMedID 19086882

  • Conceptual fluency at test shifts recognition response bias in Alzheimer's disease: Implications for increased false recognition NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA Gold, C. A., Marchant, N. L., Koutstaal, W., Schacter, D. L., Budson, A. E. 2007; 45 (12): 2791-2801

    Abstract

    The presence or absence of conceptual information in pictorial stimuli may explain the mixed findings of previous studies of false recognition in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). To test this hypothesis, 48 patients with AD were compared to 48 healthy older adults on a recognition task first described by Koutstaal et al. [Koutstaal, W., Reddy, C., Jackson, E. M., Prince, S., Cendan, D. L., & Schacter D. L. (2003). False recognition of abstract versus common objects in older and younger adults: Testing the semantic categorization account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 499-510]. Participants studied and were tested on their memory for categorized ambiguous pictures of common objects. The presence of conceptual information at study and/or test was manipulated by providing or withholding disambiguating semantic labels. Analyses focused on testing two competing theories. The semantic encoding hypothesis, which posits that the inter-item perceptual details are not encoded by AD patients when conceptual information is present in the stimuli, was not supported by the findings. In contrast, the conceptual fluency hypothesis was supported. Enhanced conceptual fluency at test dramatically shifted AD patients to a more liberal response bias, raising their false recognition. These results suggest that patients with AD rely on the fluency of test items in making recognition memory decisions. We speculate that AD patients' over reliance upon fluency may be attributable to (1) dysfunction of the hippocampus, disrupting recollection, and/or (2) dysfunction of prefrontal cortex, disrupting post-retrieval processes.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.021

    View details for Web of Science ID 000249145800015

    View details for PubMedID 17573074