L. John Greenfield Jr., M.D., Ph.D., is a nationally known expert in the cellular mechanisms of epilepsy, the mechanisms and actions of antiepileptic drugs and the body’s regulation of sensitivity to those medications. He is board certified in neurology and clinical neurophysiology.

Dr. Greenfield graduated from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in 1980. He received his doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1988 and his medical degree at the school the following year. Greenfield finished a residency in neurology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1993 and served on the faculty of its Department of Neurology for six years. He also completed a fellowship in electroencephalogram (EEG) and epilepsy during this time. Dr. Greenfield came to UAMS from the University of Toledo College of Medicine in Ohio.

He lectures nationally on the basic mechanisms of epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs and is active in several professional organizations, including the American Epilepsy Society. Dr. Greenfield is a charter member of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Acute Neural Injury and Epilepsy Study Section.

His NIH-funded research is exploring the mechanisms underlying a decrease in brain inhibitory neurotransmission that occurs after hypoxia, a decrease in oxygen level associated with conditions such as cardiopulmonary arrest, stroke, asphyxiation, acute lung disease and high altitudes.