Pablo R. Castillo, MD, FAAN, FANA

The Guest Editor of this issue of Seminars in Neurology is Dr. Pablo R. Castillo.

Dr. Castillo is Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. He brings a broad educational background to his work. After completion of medical school in his home country of Ecuador, he moved to the United States in 1997 for residency training first in Internal Medicine at the Louisiana State University, followed by Neurology Residency at the Mayo Clinic. He subsequently completed fellowships in Vascular Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, and Sleep Medicine. Dr. Castillo is board-certified in Internal Medicine, General Neurology, Sleep Medicine, Vascular Neurology, and Clinical Neurophysiology.

He has been recognized nationally as a superb educator, receiving prestigious awards such as the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Minnesota, the Distinguished Educator Award from the Mayo Clinic, and the A.B. Baker Teacher Recognition Award from the American Academy of Neurology in 2025. Currently, Dr. Castillo serves as the founder and program director of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Medicine fellowship in Florida.

At the international level, he implemented objective sleep data collection using polysomnography aimed at studying the epidemiology of sleep disorders in a defined underserved native population named the “Atahualpa Project;” a door-to-door survey of Sleep, Cardiovascular Health, and Stroke in rural coastal Ecuador.

His primary clinical interest lies in Sleep Neuromodulation as a novel therapeutic approach. In this context, he collaborated with Mayo Clinic Neurosurgery to conduct the first human Deep Brain Stimulation implantation targeting a novel brain region, in the basal ganglia which successfully alleviated insomnia in a patient with Parkinson's disease. At Mayo Clinic Florida, he spearheaded the field of neuromodulation of sleep-in human subjects. His preliminary published research demonstrated the potential significance of the globus pallidus external segment in regulating sleep in humans. A substantial revision to our current understanding of sleep neurobiology may be necessary, if the novel contribution of the basal ganglia to the sleep process is confirmed.

He is clearly a pioneer in the field of sleep and has assembled an exceptional group of authors for this issue, which I am sure you will find highly educational.

We greatly appreciate the efforts of Dr. Castillo, as well as all the contributing authors, for their contributions in this issue of Seminars. The reviews are concise, insightful, well-written, and timely. Sleep Neurology is an often neglected or underappreciated aspect of neurology, but one that impacts every subspecialty in one way or another—understanding how to help these patients is paramount to the care of all neurology patients. I would like to personally thank Dr. Castillo for his deep commitment to making this a superb issue. We hope you enjoy it!

Publication History

Article published online:
26 June 2025