I'd like to invite past president. Dr. Ali Rezai to the stage
Good morning
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Ashwini Sharan
Who is the 68th president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and also the first Indian American president of the CNS.
The early years for Ash. Ash was born in the Bihar region of India, his father was in civil engineering.
His mother was a geography professor and the family moved to the U.S. when Ash was 10 months old.
That's a picture of him right there at age 10 months and then they settled initially
In the Bronx and then moved to New Jersey after that.
During these early years Ash's mother began a new career
from geography to study in computer science
that was more relevant that time and she studied at NYU and Ash's father became a
successful civil engineer at the New York Transit Authority
Ash's parents exposed him to science and arts during these formative years and
Ash learned a value of education, hard work and the importance of embracing new opportunities like his parents
In his childhood Ash had a great talent and passion for technology the traits that he holds today and he started programming
computers at age 7 amazing and was controlling lights and devices at home from his Commodore Vic-20 that his parents got for him and
Guess what? His first job was at age 12
He was programming for a database for a local bank. And if that wasn't enough at age 16, he was programming for ABC News
Ash was also an entrepreneur a young age fixing people's homes chandeliers for the neighbors
tuning up cars and building computers
He also obtained a prestigious scholarship from Governor Kean of New Jersey in 1987
then he went after high school and
enrolled in the six-year BA MD program at Boston University and UMDNJ where he received numerous awards
in math and science and graduating in 1995.
Despite excelling in science and medicine. Ash also had an interest in other areas
Does anybody know what career aspirations Ash had?
Gave up to becoming a neurosurgeon
well
He was interested with his best friend AJ as an interventional radiologist an audience. They were interested in Hollywood and
They explored acting as and dancing as a career had a Bollywood Club
Rollerblade dancers and they were spotted on more than one occasion
Performing hoping to be invited to an audition for Bollywood TV. Here's one of those
auditions
I might be
There's Ash right there, okay, so Ash had he had a promising career but eventually
Decided that neurosurgery was easier and AJ decide that radiology was easier. I'm glad you made those decisions
so once if the Hollywood career got out of Ash's system, it was time for him to get serious and
He married his lovely wife canoe who was a successful medical oncologist and also a better dancer than ash
Continuing on ash did his residency at Thomas Jefferson University
And then he did a fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. Also where another good great life event
His first daughter Asha was born September 12
2001
Ash has been defined by many mentors who have had a tremendous influence along this path and career
They include Bill Buckeye Robert Rosen Worcester our honored guest Joe lost her home Fred Simeone
Giancarlo burrow Ladd is the guy. He's hittin kissing his head and then add benzyl and many others
I got to know ash when he did a functional fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic and
I was struck by his unique intelligence and tremendous energy. He picked up the concepts very quickly
Had great hands, and also he had tremendous depth of caring for his patients
He was always full of ideas and very creative and prolific and over a few month period he wrote
over seven papers
five patents and a successful orowan grant
So after finishing his fellowship ash went to Thomas Jefferson University who has been a faculty there for the past 16 years
Is the residency program director and director of the functional neurosurgeon epilepsy?
For those of you who don't know I asked she's a world-class
epilepsy surgeon pain surgeon a movement disorder surgeon as I mentioned before he is deeply compassionate a
physician and cares tremendously best patients
Another one of Ash's great passions is education. He's made an indelible impact on the training and thinking of students
residents and colleagues across the world and
Has been a constant champion and a leader in the evolution of neurosurgical education
few of his accomplishments
He has had over 150 peer-reviewed publications 30 book chapters and over 150 invited presentations
He's also prolific and inventor and innovator. He has an uncanny ability to see the future
He quickly understands grasps and embraces new technology and very quickly applies them for patient care
Ashe has been a leader in organized neurosurgery for over a dozen years serving in a countless number of committees
Education meeting committee and many others
he's an energetic and inspirational leader who values the advancement of the younger generation and women in neurosurgery and neural modulation and
He was the president of the North American normal Society in
2015 17 and president of the South Asian
Neurological Surgeons society as well in
2013 and he is the president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons in
2018
But it's not about all about worker - he enjoys life to the fullest and has fun at everything he does
He's fun to be around
He's an adventurer
He is diving with the sharks
Riding elephants
River rafting great for great 405 which I don't go with them wrestling Tigers
Charming snakes
You can see I'm behind them right there when he's trying to charm the snake and also ask the cowboy among many other things
But if you're ever gonna go on a trip with Ashe, make sure that you have good life insurance and disability coverage
the one thing however Ashe does not give up is
his constant quest to become a Bollywood star
You can get this. This is even as daughter's sweet 16th birthday party. He takes over to be a Bollywood star
Okay, he was gonna perform an unstageable
So he has a big audience, of course
so but most importantly beyond Neurosurgery ashes a
Balanced guy and a family man balanced except when he's talking to Jim hair up gossiping here
You can see a picture with his wife here in his gossiping with Jim
But he enjoys a life to the fullest with his wonderful wife canoe and his two girls. Uh,
Shawn Massey and his family and the new addition to the family Apollo the dog
So in summary, ash is a force of Neurosurgery, he exemplifies passion integrity
creativity leadership and innovation and he has led a life of service and mentorship and
Neurosurgeries a labor of love for him. I can go on forever highlighting his achievements and extolling its virtues
But before they yank me off the stage here
I want to make sure to say that he is also my great friend and he's like a brother to me
Please join me welcoming Ashley Sharon the 26th president of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons
Thank You Ali I owe you tremendously for your support your
Mentorship your friendship and you have become
Part of my family and everybody should know that Ali also likes to dance behind the scenes
Before I start to shout outs and I don't want to hear any dancing jokes for my my people over here for me
to shout outs
Also to Dan Resnick who has really believed in me and to Robert Rosen washer my honored guest who has provided tremendous support. I
Have had such great privilege in leading the Congress of Neurological Surgeons
So many people have worked with me to make this day happen. I
Present in front of you the executive committee for the cns
These people are selfless. You don't realize how much work it takes to put a wedding on steroids on
Each one of these individuals has made this year has given us the ability to move mountains
It's only working together that these kind of opportunities come
I've had an awesome time working with Ganesh Allen Jim Hara Praveen, Mohan any Steve calcaneus?
We are a part of a small knit group of people that can actually help it to each other make great decisions in life
So to my officers, thank you for your support and thank you through the hard times this year. I
Have so much deep love for my meeting committee that has made this day
exceptionally exceptionally memorable
when I got married, I was 25 years old and
Didn't have recollection of the event
Because you're too young to appreciate what that means
And today is a very different type of moment. And so Brian Alex nadir. Thank you for making that possible today
You heard about the great accomplishments of Nick bamb Akitas. Who's our
educational division chair and I call out both make and Dean a show Pastor Gary in this because
It is the business of the Congress of Neurosurgery. This is education product these gentlemen run a
division of a hundred different participants and volunteers
and Ashok has guided us through our ACCME accreditation and
Does not get the recognition and the detail that goes behind making education the way it is
I've had tremendous fun working with my editor in chief Nelson. OA CQ one of the most creative and articulate individuals
there are and Brandon our managing editor and keeping the journal robust and allowing us to
spread the message and
The cns headquarter staff what a group of awesome people who spend 24/7 who believe in neurosurgery
Non neurosurgeons who believe in the vision of neurosurgery Thank You staff. I
Want you to pay attention because this has CNSC a CEO because this woman single-handedly this person runs our organization
You're gonna see this name in the top executives of this country in the near future
We've had tremendous valued partners, I've loved working with with Dan Barrow Shelley Timmons Alice vodka fred meyer
Organized neurosurgery today has one voice there's communication not competition. And if there is competition is only to make it better
We are all working together for the future of neurosurgery
Great valued partners our friends from Brazil our friends from Japan
Thank you for supporting the Congress of Neurological Surgeons today and forever and a special
Thank you in a call-out to my members from asan American Association of South Asian neurosurgeons where I first got my first leadership
opportunity and the neurological Society of India
So many of you I know are here with your prayers and blessings for me, and I really deeply I deeply appreciate that
Momo and Toto my daughters and my wife I couldn't be here without the support
My family my parents my
Staff at home. My residents my faculty my
Nurses my friends, my best friends my patients my Program Coordinator
everybody who's given me the inner strength and soul to be here and have the strength to
Prepare this and it's been fun
It's been really fun. So, thank you
Wow that was a lot are we ready to take off I
Am so excited to be here to celebrate the knowledge and success of Neurosurgery with you I
really believe that technology has and will continue to change the way neuro surgery is performed and
We will continue to deliver more superior patient outcomes after
Today's story what is mission neurosurgery?
I will consider it a victory if you are again energized and are mobilized to direct tomorrow's changes. That's what I want. I
will address the roles of visualization robotics and computers and
Then focus on establishing our own roles are three mission goals leadership
patient empathy and
tools tailored for treatment
basically, this is a story of how space and how the exploration of space has allowed for a framing of the exploration of the
mind
On September 12
1962 President Kennedy gave a speech why the moon?
Here in Houston here at Wright at prices University and he was defining a single mission
let's get safely to the moon and back and
He inspired our country to mobilize its talent resources to achieve that single goal. I
Hope that some of you have the opportunity to visit NASA
This has really resonated with me. I
Have read more about that JFK moment and discovered that it was less than seven years later less than seven years
On July 20th 1969 that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface
Kennedy in his speech states we chose to go to the moon among other things but not because they are easy
But because they are hard and that goal will serve to organize the best of our skills and energies
America achieved something that seems so formidable and
Complicated through its astronauts who became a symbol that the impossible is possible
Remember we the neurosurgeons are the astronauts of the central nervous system
Why do we perform neurosurgery not because it's easy because it's hard
While America's space program was building in the 1970s. My parents were laying the foundation for my own mission
I grew up in the household in Bronx like you heard two to immigrant parents who gave me a Commodore vic-20 and
Exposed me to computers and cutting-edge 1980's technologies
This was before the Internet
But their hope for me was different that I should become a doctor and embark on a more meaningful career
fortunately neurosurgery enabled me to have a career where I today implant chips and wires in the brain and the
spinal cord and I have made this my life's mission as
a functional neurosurgeon
I get the privilege of combining neurosurgery with engineering and computer technologies every day and more importantly helping make
meaningful differences in people's lives
Now every mission starts off with a set of leaders
Someone has to take charge. Someone must have the vision and establish a trajectory
This is what President Kennedy began
there must be operational leaders and inspirational leaders and
that someone must drive the mission forward not give up balance risks and fears in
space
There were neil armstrong valentina Tereshkova and others all in some way was the first leader on a journey on a mission
the space program was a structured pursuit of
purpose with a defined task
For us to bring relevance. There was the word the likes of Walter. Dandy Harvey Cushing Wilder Penfield and others
They were removing tumors with their fingers
They were using pituitary forceps through the nose without modern lighting and they were even performing exploratory
craniotomies in the temporal lobe looking for epileptic spots
Definitely balancing the risk without fear for managing diseases
Which may not have had any treatment in an era where half the patients might not even have survived
None neurosurgery has come a very long way since then and I will cover
Visualization the diagnostic piece robotics the action and computer technologies, which is the data integration
Staring into space has helped us develop a concept of visualization
Tools have been developed spanning the centuries to see beyond the universe
Starting with Galileo's handheld telescope and advancing all the way to the Hubble telescope
This has allowed us to nurture our curiosity
Seeing makes the unknown known and so we can explore
The Doppler effect was described in 1842 and aloud estimation of the movement of celestial objects in
1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik one
Two American physicists monitored its radio transmissions and realized that because of the Doppler effect
They could pinpoint along a trajectory where the satellite was going to be
They got access to the univac computer and from this emerge the modern gps system
We rely on this technology daily. You see location matters and it matters even more in neurosurgery
in the same century
Visualization science has revolutionized the course of medicine the tools that we took for granted are worthy of Nobel prizes
The brain you see is entirely composed of soft tissue. That is not a radial Paik
It remains essentially invisible to ordinary our plain x-ray examination
Two Nobel prizes have been awarded for imaging in
1979 Cormack and Hounsfield received the Nobel Prize for CT scanning and in
2003 Lauder bar and Mansfield received a Nobel Prize for magnetic resonance. Imaging
visualization revolutionizes understanding and
revolutionizes surgery
It took neurosurgery a long time to integrate these methods of cranial navigation
How often did people and say I don't need that tool to find the tumor?
and
Now what operating room does not have such tools?
Okay, but keep your eyes wide open
Today's visualization tool sets are phenomenal. They include better optics and the
Scopes are now bringing lighting deep into the brain at the source of visualization
Microscopic magnification allows us to see even blood flow in living tissue
It will be up to us to explore the power of these technologies. I
believe visualization of tumor cells and dysplastic
Epileptic neurons will change the way we approach neuro imaging and surgery
Tomorrow GPS technology will be integrated
with surface scanning and
this will allow real-time co-registration and navigation and augmented reality and
It's gonna allow us to see and understand and predict the unknown
It's going to eliminate the concept of surgical exploration. It's gonna open up new car doors and approaches
What happens next
neurosurgery requires precision
while the public desires safety and reproducibility
Now robots are integral in manufacturing cars and other consumer goods
They easily perform tasks over and over again. They allow cloning and reproducibility
Inherent in their engineering allows for a quality control process and products and moves
which can be measured for efficiency and
In general they don't think but I don't know if that's longer any longer true
There has been some massive breakthroughs in robotic space technology
in robotics space technology has developed one of the most advanced robot arms a candidate to
Arm on the International Space Station this arm can smack satellites while traveling at over
17,000 miles per hour
Furthermore we are
Anthropomorphizing robots and they are competing with biological systems. What watch this guy is doing and he's so polite
The robots are being programmed with haptics intuition and other such additional seed features. He lets the other robot first
In today's operating rooms robots are mainly passive on the first pass robots are holding endoscopes
They are integrating with navigation and helping to stabilize trajectories in stereo. Taxi. I will demonstrate that later
We will soon see convergence
Robots and visualization technologies are being integrated to Mars or will be designed in this manner
Interop MRI Interop CT fluoroscopy were tools which were all used
But as they combine with image processing technologies, their utility will be better defined
Today other robots are augmenting
endovascular surgeries and reducing vessel wall dissection
there are technologies which allow
haptic feedback and remote navigation of endovascular catheters
Ultrasound and sensor integration is also simultaneously happening, which is the image on the bottom
this is gonna allow haptic feedback, which is going to assist you during decompression and
allow sensing of Dura
Not too hard to imagine next right?
Now don't think that robots are only about inserting pedicle screws
Now most of you will say I can insert screw spine without this technology
Wait, 10 to 15 years
when all these technologies converge
It's the convergence of parallel technologies. Would that allow for us to experience inflection points?
Robots will become commonplace because of the complexity of surgery and healthcare
Automation must relieve personnel from mundane tasks and allow for high reliability for high-risk procedures
robots are about predictability and safety robots will be the bridge that brings engineering process control into the operating room and increase
Efficiency and reduce fragmentation that exists from each individual doing it their own way in medicine
What else?
Now we are all familiar with the power of computers
data management is allowing for seismic changes to occur in healthcare and
We are talking about epic common data elements DICOM. Mr. RCT
neurophysiology and limitless other objects
today to process and draw conclusions and make
Diagnosis we mainly use human cognitive computing power
But one point of reference before I proceed I will refer to the scale of things
The term byte refers to storage and the term flop is a unit of speed and operations
Now we are all familiar more or less with the concept of gigabytes and terabytes today
but learn the next 1,000 fold increases of petabyte and exabyte I
wonder how many people know how big a transistor is and how big a neuron is a
Transistor can be manufactured on the scale below 100 nano meters
while a neuron is a thousand times bigger a
Neuron is between 60 to hundred micrometers
It's amazing what engineering is accomplishing?
Now don't we be worried the calculated storage capacity of the human brain might be on the order of 2.5 petabytes
If we assume that a hundred billion neurons would dendrites a settlement assimilating connections from over a thousand other neurons
without accounting for the effects of micro proteins and DNA which may actually be more augmenting we get a
conservative estimate of 2.5 petabytes storage capacity
To give you some significant Sept of the significance of this the Hubble telescope
generates about 10 terabytes of new data every year
That's basically 4,000 photos every day for a year
Something like the entire Avatar movie meted 1 petabyte of storage to render those graphics
We are all witnessing the revolution and an electronic storage capacity and see the gap closing fast
These racks of computers which are designed with this type of capacity
By many reasonable estimates the computing power of the human brain may be as high as one exaflop
You see we can analyze every scene every second and react in real time
Today's super computers are in the range of 20 to 200 petaflops and take very large rooms
However, there are estimates that exascale computing power will be achieved by
2020
The same processes that it takes computers to perform simple math calculations, although at the speed of light can take a few million steps
But can be done
in a few hundred neuronal transmissions
Attract an action potential is on the scale of a millisecond
but don't lose sight of what IBM Watson has done in 2011 and
Alphago a computer program developed by google deepmind has done
The advantage that these digital systems are that they can be copied and cloned and mass-produced
and of course the brain is not the best of storing images even remembering names and details and
May even have particular inconsistencies
but the tools are there to study the mind and
We hit neurosurgery will be the interface and become the biological engineers who will be part of this team that will make this happen
Epilepsy neurosurgery is something that I have the privilege of performing and it requires a team approach
Epilepsy neurologist physiologist neuropsychologist MRI specialist, we work together and
We implant patients like this with grid and shrimp electrodes on a hypothesis aimed to find a seizure onset zone
these patients stay in the hospital for two to three weeks and
They have been helping us to explore the brain
While the patients remain in the hospital they are patients participated in research
They were playing time locked computer games, which I'll walk you through if you look at at the top
The patients would be challenged to memorize word list
They would be distracted by math problems and they would be tested on their ability to recall
So we studied encoding distraction and recall. This has taught us so much about human memory a
Fortunate event occurred in
2014
DARPA issued a challenge a moonshot competition which desired the development of a memory?
augmenting prosthetic
To help study and treat Alzheimer's disease and TBI
Mike Kahana neuropsychologist who had been working with us for the last five years
Engineered an eighth Center Network group to address this challenge. I
Had the opportunity of participating on that great research team
Prior to the DARPA grant, we had ramped up over four years and enrolled over 80 patients
With the network of collaborators, we enrolled in the following four years three hundred and sixty patients and compiled
800 stimulation sessions among
45,000 electrode positions in the brain
Now what I am sharing on the screen are real-time electrical high frequency areas corresponding to the patient events of distraction
Encoding distraction and recall and will help you understand that now watch the green bar
when you see the word on you see the occipital cortex light up and really quickly get into the hippocampus and
Then there is repetition and activation of Broca's and Wernicke's areas until the word is off
With some certainty now, we have biological markers of word recall and possible attention
Remember, these are electrical activity. So they're real-time
We can mathematically predict. What is the chance of a person remembering a word with this technique?
We then systematically created a search and seek methodology to create a paradigm where memory might be augmented
With electrical stimulation and we were able to do that about half the time
Now this is a skull x-ray of something called stereo EEG, this is the next generation of tools
This is DBS on steroids. This is gonna further unlock brain mapping
Many centers are already shifting to this paradigm
The concept is to thread a zero point eight millimeter electrode all along the epileptic
networks to study seizure onset zones and spread patterns
This can only be done with today's modern technologies by using visualization
image processing computing capability
All these tools working together are allowing us to perform these operations in two to three hours safely
The bleeding rates are published at less than 1%
Now the next is a really speed view to give you only a flavor of how this happens so fast
Planning starts with gadolinium MRI and in angiogram so we can see the blood vessels
We segment out the blood vessels. We study slice by slice
We coupled with robots to install anchor bolts through which we thread wires through the networks of the brains vasculature
The patient's barely describe pain from these three millimeter incisions
Every day while waiting for seizures we conduct small memory experiments
we generate about 20 gigabytes of data that must be analyzed and 10 years ago this type of
Processing was taking days not hours
With image visual imaging visualization robotics computer technologies and
Analytics new fields are emerging
Just like stroke has become a neurosurgical remediable problem
Memory disorders and other restorative procedures are on the horizon
The people in this room have the ability to make such a difference for patients with neurological disorders
Don't lose the wonder of exploration
We have the privilege of working in the operating room interfacing engineering and operating on the mind
to succeed even more we need to further three other missions which have been alluded to and
Now I will focus on leadership
Transforming lives with patient empathy and tomorrow's tools. I
Want to Incept
Some thoughts into your mind
This year I read nudge theory by Richard Taylor a Nobel Prize winner in behavioral economics
Taylor addresses things like how an opt-out box for organ donation can make such a huge difference
in the availability of organ donors all over the world or
How a small pin
How small pin can start a conversation
It can serve as an itis for inquiry
When somebody asks why?
See a nudge can serve as a force that can overcome inertia
Isn't the journey of Neurosurgery something that we all embarked upon when we were graduating high school college med school
Why do we choose such a hard path?
Neurosurgery training is very very hard
The majority the people in this room have spent between 23 thousand hours if you work 80 hours a week
To 33 thousand hours if you work between a hundred to 120 hours a week in training
Doesn't that amaze you
the 10,000 hour rule times two times three
The community around us does not know of the journey that we have endured
We should be proud. I
Was lucky enough to have a co-pilot on this mission canoe Priya my wife for 22 years. I
Say that because we all did partners support children to remind us of the future a way to remain balanced on this arduous journey
The people in this room are really the same
We have the same principles same thoughts. Same values same dreams. We share neurosurgery
being connected as
neurosurgery prevents our burnout
But the training is transformative the operative performance must be perfect. Every time this is the beginning of the mission
Become neurotic a perfectionist even read like a maniac operate operate operate for all the right reasons
You stay highly focused and develop a very unique skill set which we know is valued
You graduate and you enter a new but complicated world of healthcare, which also must be mastered
This is a maze for physicians and even a larger maze for patients is a system that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't
To navigate your way out of this maze you need the support of teams
You need new skills
You have to learn what the value of communication means you realize the complexity management
You watch how hospitals require so many specialists intensive as hospital is everything to take care of the ever-increasing
problem of health you observe how decisions and resources are allocated and
You know that neurosurgery is so much more than an operation of which we are the pilot
neurosurgery requires leaders
We have earned that respect and must share that respect. We must inspire others and recognize their contributions
Remember neurosurgery now requires a team-based approach you are positioned so well to be that leader
The new metrics of success is not a successful operation
But a great patient outcome
Perfect performance from the day the patient enters a clinic to the day of completed recovery is what what is required and what is expected?
So mission number two empathy. What is it that binds all of us together?
It is the difficult treatment of neurosurgical diseases. We take care of very difficult patients and solve people's problems
We take care of people
It's our patience and empathy for them. That's the most important any one day. It could be you I
Like this quote from Maimonides it says what I want to say
Save the world save a life reduce pain
It speaks to neurosurgery. Give hope
inspiring young people it speaks on the acts of kindness the
public speaks of firefighters
We as neurosurgeons provide a very different type of support for this country and the world we deal with
Emergencies we wake up in the middle of the night to save someone who was in an accident and has head trauma
We come in with our teams to remove a blood clot from stroke
In other worlds we repair
Spinal fractures and decompress the spinal cord. We stop bleeding through transfer noodle approaches to return vision
We are society safety net and we should be proud of these accomplishments and not complain
This service is what directly contributes to our value
We make people walk by decompression. We reduce pain. We stop epilepsy. We rewire Parkinson's disease
We remove brain tumors. We clip aneurysms. We divert CSF and we restore health
We operate on a system which has low tolerance for mistakes. We are like astronauts
We are a small group of people who are on a big mission. I
Think the members in this room are actually heroes. This is a picture of Pascal Jabbar. I'm so proud of training him
He saved this young lady's life from a ruptured AVM while she was pregnant and she is returning to him eight years. Later
She delivered safely and recovered and her son's name is Jefferson
Pascal and I both work at thalmus Jefferson University
Please don't ever get so bogged down that you look at our work as just work
No matter how many years you've been in practice don't ever forget the impact you are having in the same vein
Don't ever forget the credit your patient themselves deserve our patients have incredible physical and emotional strength
I am so in awe of some of them
Get their permission share their stories perhaps on Twitter
Their messages inspire I bet most patients will allow us to share their stories make this a discipline ritual
Talk about it with your colleagues as well as your family and friends
How many of you have children who are interested in a future career in medicine? I know I do
Tell them about your patients show them what medicine is about it's more than illness and science medicine is about people
Mission number three tomorrow's tools
Don't just Abdallah G that is already available to us. Think about how it could become better enhanced and better and make that happen
integrate that technology
and
Develop the next generation of tools
Which we will use going forward and I will share some of these technologies which are pushing the boundaries in neurosurgery
The stent Road, which you'll hear about in another session
Is it as a stent with active electronics also developed with DARPA research is going to allow
interpretation of EEG signals today and one day we'll actually have pressure sensors and glucose sensors to study every
nook and corner of the human anatomy
there's also studies underway using vagal nerve stimulation to mimic the effects of a functional splenectomy a
Treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and an inflammatory bowel diseases is on the horizon
In centers in Europe and in the u.s. Three to four stereotactic catheters are playing place in the brainstem to treat
children who are have inoperable tumors like DIPG
Other centers are implanting stimulators on the sphenoid palate in gangland to treat cluster headaches and this technology is a future
To opening up the brain blood barrier in other centers that are using implanted prosthetics for blindness
Biological manipulation of tissues and stem cells that we heard about
We will be a part of all these discoveries and we will continue to win
This is a final video I
Was always amazed and might not have understood what it means when you see a group of people win
NASA was able to
target an s-u-v sized vehicle called curiosity
They hurled it through space
250 million miles away from the earth and
They landed it on Mars in two years
They funded a 10-year mission for only 2.5 billion dollars
That's only $1 per citizen in this country over 10 years
Now you will see what happens when curiosity lands
The room is going to scream in jubilation
Remain strong
This is human energy, it's tangible. We all feel it
Humanity NASA achieved the impossible
That's what's driving that
Happiness that greatness see the impossible is possible when we work together we can do it
So back to the beginning
What is mission neurosurgery?
It's not about stopping at the moon or landing on Mars
It is about unlocking the secrets of the brain for a better future for the health of humanity
When JFK gave his famous speech in
1962 many people thought that getting to the moon would be impossible
But astronauts proved them wrong
as
Neurosurgeons we are also able to do what many people think is impossible
We are the astronauts of the central nervous system. Thank you very much!
