The Department of Neurological Surgery research bulletin is updated monthly. Check back for the latest grants, awards, and high-impact publications.
High Impact Publications
April 2025
Dr. Venkatesh Aiyagari and his collaborators published "Caring for Coma after Severe Brain Injury: Clinical Practices and Challenges to Improve Outcomes: An Initiative by the Curing Coma Campaign" in Neurocritical Care.
Drs. Mazin Al Tamimi, Salah Aoun and their collaborators published "Lessons from the pandemic: a retrospective study and literature comparative review of provider and patient experiences with telemedicine in spine care" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.
Drs. Elias Elias, Ryan Chiu, Jose Marin Sanchez and their collaborators published "Historical evolution, management, and outcome of surgical treatment for high-grade spondylolisthesis: a systematic review" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.
Dr. Rafael de Oliveira Sillero and his collaborators published "Subgaleal hemorrhage in neonates: a comprehensive review and summary recommendations" in Journal of Perinatology.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Predictors of angiographic occlusion after embolization of intracranial arteriovenous malformations with curative intent" in Interventional Neuroradiology.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Affective bias predicts changes in depression during deep brain stimulation therapy" in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Volumetric and diffusion MRI longitudinal patterns in brain metastases after laser interstitial thermal therapy" in European Radiology.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Neurosurgical Treatment of Combat-Related Brain Injuries: Lessons from 10 years of war in Ukraine" in Läkartidningen.
Dr. Bradley Lega and his collaborators published "Study-phase reinstatement predicts subsequent recall" in Nature Neuroscience.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Prediction of persistent incomplete occlusion of intracranial aneurysms treated with woven EndoBridge device" in Neurosurgical Review.
Dr. Toral Patel and her collaborators published "Convection enhanced delivery of Rhenium (186Re) Obisbemeda (186RNL) in recurrent glioma: a multicenter, single arm, phase 1 clinical trial" in Nature Communications.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "B(RAIN)2-BRAIN integrated Resource for Anatomy and Intracranial Neurophysiology" in Scientific Data.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Effector specificity in human posterior parietal neurons and local field potentials during movement in virtual reality and online brain control" in Journal of Neural Engineering.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Interaction of motor behaviour, cortical oscillations and deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease" in Brain.
Dr. Angela Price and her collaborators published "Beamforming of ictal MEG aiding subtle focal cortical dysplasia localization" in Epilepsy & Behavior Reports.
Drs. Alex Valadka, Bradley Guidry and their collaborators published "Concussions in Baseball Players" in Clinics in Sports Medicine.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Noninvasive Monitoring of Traumatic Intracranial Hematoma Progression Using the Infrascanner: Preliminary Experience" in JACEP Open.
Drs. Jonathan White, Ryan Chiu and their collaborators published "Trend Toward Vaginal Versus Cesarean Deliveries in Pregnant Patients with Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms in the 2010s: A Nationwide Inpatient Analysis" in World Neurosurgery.
Archive
Grants and Awards
UTSW Epilepsy Monitoring Unit is First in Nation to Receive Gold-level Beacon Award
The Beacon Award for Excellence recognizes units distinguished by their excellence in providing high-quality evidence-based patient care in a healthy work environment with a unit culture that optimizes patient outcomes exceeding national benchmarks. Congratulations to our exceptional Epilepsy Monitoring Unit team!
High Impact Publications
Dr. Venkatesh Aiyagari and his collaborators published "Neuroradiological Correlates of Abnormal Pupillary Light Reflex Findings Among Patients in the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit" in Journal of Neuroscience Nursing.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Radiotherapy and radiosurgery for intracranial lesions in Africa: Insights from 3 country case studies: A systematic review" in Neuro-Oncology Advances.
Dr. Bradley Lega and his collaborators published "American Clinical Neurophysiology Society Technical Standards for Electrical Stimulation With Intracranial Electrodes for Functional Brain Mapping and Seizure Induction" in Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Incidence and predictors of Woven EndoBridge (WEB) shape modification following treatment of intracranial aneurysms in a large multicenter study" in Neurosurgical Review.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Impact of smoking on recurrence rates among wide-neck intracranial aneurysms treated with Woven EndoBridge: a multicenter retrospective study" in Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Comparing P300 flashing paradigms in online typing with language models" in PloS One.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Computational mechanism underlying switching of motor actions" in PLoS Computational Biology.
Dr. Venkatesh Aiyagari and his collaborators published "Anisocoria After Direct Light Stimulus is Associated with Poor Outcomes Following Acute Brain Injury" in Neurocritical Care.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Comparative Analysis of Large Language Models and Spine Surgeons in Surgical Decision-Making and Radiological Assessment for Spine Pathologies" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Optimal Duration of Antibiotic Therapy for Primary Osteomyelitis Discitis: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis" in Spine.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Presentation, management, and outcome of traumatic spine injuries in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.
Drs. Bradley Lega, Cody Wolfe and their collaborators published "Models of human hippocampal specialization: a look at the electrophysiological evidence" in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Enhanced control of a brain–computer interface by tetraplegic participants via neural-network-mediated feature extraction" in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Dr. Venkatesh Aiyagari and his collaborators published Clinical outcome and cost effectiveness of acute ischemic stroke transfers for endovascular reperfusion therapy from geographically distant counties: Stroke transfer outcomes" in Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases.
Dr. Mazin Al Tamimi and his collaborators published "Cervical spinal cord morphometrics in degenerative cervical myelopathy: quantification using semi-automated normalized technique and correlation with neurological dysfunctions" in The Spine Journal.
Drs. Salah Aoun, Bruno Braga, Brett Whittemore and their collaborators published "Global neurotrauma: A systematic review and summary of the current state of registries around the world" in Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.
Drs. Samuel Barnett, Ankur Patel, Toral Patel and their collaborators published "Exploratory Evaluation of Personalized Ultra-Fractionated Stereotactic Adaptive Radiotherapy (PULSAR) with CNS-Active Drugs in Brain Metastases Treatment" in International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics.
Drs. Hunt Batjer, Babu Welch and their collaborators published "A Transcriptomic Comparative Study of Cranial Vasculature" in Translational Stroke Research.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Off-Label use of Woven EndoBridge device for intracranial brain aneurysm treatment: Modeling of occlusion outcome" in Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases.
Dr. Ankur Patel and his collaborators published "Social Media Behavior Guidelines for Healthcare Professionals: An American Society of Pain and Neuroscience NEURON Project" in Journal of Pain Research.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Aperiodic (1/f) neural activity robustly tracks symptom severity changes in treatment-resistant depression." in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Dr. Bradley Weprin and his collaborators published "A survey of the members of the American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons and factors associated with well-being" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Exploring Health Inequalities and Presurgical Attitudes on Postsurgical Outcomes in Spine Surgery" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Time to maximum pupil constriction is variable in neurocritical care patients" in Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Dural arteriovenous fistulas at the craniocervical junction: a systematic review and meta-analysis" in Neurosurgical Review.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Association of preprocedural antiplatelet use with decreased thromboembolic complications for intracranial aneurysms undergoing intrasaccular flow disruption" in Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Defining ideal middle cerebral artery bifurcation aneurysm size for Woven EndoBridge embolization" in Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Bioethics and Neurosurgery: An Overview of Existing and Emerging Topics for the Practicing Neurosurgeon" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Pilot Study of Acute Behavioral Effects of Pallidal Burst Stimulation in Parkinson's Disease" in Movement disorders: Official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Towards objective, temporally resolved neurobehavioral predictors of emotional state" in Brain stimulation.
Dr. Rafael Sillero and his collaborators published "Indications for cerebral revascularization for moyamoya syndrome in pediatric sickle cell disease determined by Delphi methodology" in Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Jeffery Traylor and his collaborators published "Matched three-dimensional organoids and two-dimensional cell lines of melanoma brain metastases mirror response to targeted molecular therapy" in bioRxiv.
Drs. Jonathan White, Salah Aoun, and their collaborators published "Neurologic Quality of Life Outcomes in Patients with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus After Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt Placement: A Prospective Assessment of Cognition, Mobility, and Social Participation" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Brett Whittermore and his collaborators published "Predictors of postsurgical retethering in pediatric fatty or tight filum terminale: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 1167 patients" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.
Drs. Brett Whittemore, Bruno Braga, Salah Aoun and their collaborators published "Presentation, management, and outcomes of pediatric hydrocephalus in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 12,355 patients" in Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Exploring Health Inequalities and Presurgical Attitudes on Postsurgical Outcomes in Spine Surgery" in World Neurosurgery.
Drs. Salah Aoun, Brett Whittemore, and Bruno Braga published "Presentation, management, and outcomes of pediatric hydrocephalus in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 12,355 patients" in Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics.
Dr. Elias Elias and his collaborators published "Predictive factors and quality of life assessment among patients with spinal cord injury in the Middle East: a systematic review" by Quality of Life Research.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Creation of a predictive calculator to determine adequacy of occlusion of the woven endobridge (WEB) device in intracranial aneurysms-A retrospective analysis of the WorldWide WEB Consortium database" by Interv Neuoadiol.
Dr. Rafael de Oliveira Sillero and his collaborators published "Mechanical disorders of the cervicocerebral circulation in children and young adults" in the Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Intracranial Directed Connectivity Links Subregions of the Prefrontal Cortex to Major Depression" in medRxiv.
Drs Angela Price, Brett Whittemore, Bruno Braga, and Dale Swift published "Predictors of syrinx presentation and outcomes in pediatric Chiari malformation type I: a single institution experience of 218 consecutive syrinx patients" in the Child's Nervous System.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Performance of the IMPACT and CRASH prognostic models for traumatic brain injury in a contemporary multicenter cohort: a TRACK-TBI study" in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Drs. Mazin Al Tamimi and Salah Aoun published "Age is Associated with Level of First-Time Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion: An Ordinal Analysis of Factors Influencing Timing of Cervical Degeneration" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Frederick Hitti and his collaborators published "Investigating Resistance to Antidepressants in Animal Models" in Neuroscience.
Dr. Bradley Lega and his collaborators published "Modulation of hippocampal theta oscillations via deep brain stimulation of the parietal cortex depends on cognitive state" in Cortex.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Long-Term Follow-Up of Cerebral Aneurysms Completely Occluded at 6 Months After Intervention with the Woven EndoBridge (WEB) Device: a Retrospective Multicenter Observational Study" in Translational stroke research.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Primary Embolization of Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformations With Intention to Cure: A Systematic Review of Literature and Meta-Analysis" in Neurosurgery.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Globus pallidus externus drives increase in network-wide alpha power with propofol-induced loss-of-consciousness in humans" in Cerebral Cortex.
Dr. Matthew Sun and his collaborators published "Epigenetic induction of cancer testis antigens and endogenous retroviruses at single-cell level enhances immune recognition and response in glioma" in Cancer research communications.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Isolated Traumatic Subarachnoid Hemorrhage on Head Computed Tomography Scan May Not Be Isolated: A Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury Study (TRACK-TBI) Study" in the Journal of Neurotrauma.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Use of MRI in patients with severe diffuse traumatic brain injury: A matched National Trauma Data Bank analysis" in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.
Drs. Jonathan White and Salah Aoun published "Neurologic Quality of Life Outcomes in Patients with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus After Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt Placement: A Prospective Assessment of Cognition, Mobility, and Social Participation" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Venkatesh Aiyagari and his collaborators published "Quantitative Pupillometry: Clinical Applications for the Internist" in The American Journal of Medicine.
Drs. Mazin Al Tamimi and Salah Aoun published "Basilar Impression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Features, Operative Strategies and Outcomes" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Maxine Deborrah Hyde: First Female Graduate of Case Western Reserve University's Neurologic Surgery Residency Program and Second Black Female Neurosurgeon in the United States" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Salah Aoun and his collaborators published "Response to the Letter to the Editor on "Psoas Muscle Index as a Predictor of Perioperative Outcomes in Geriatric Patients Undergoing Spine Surgery" in the Global Spine Journal.
Drs. Salah Aoun, Mazin Al Tamimi, James Caruso, Remi Wilson, Luke Dosselman and their collaborators published "Age is Associated with Level of First-Time Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion: An Ordinal Analysis of Factors Influencing Timing of Cervical Degeneration" in the World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Elias Elias and his collaborators published "Assessing Surgical Outcomes for Cage Plate System versus Stand-Alone Cage in Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" in World Neurosurgery.
Dr. Elias Elias and his collaborators published "Predictive factors and quality of life assessment among patients with spinal cord injury in the Middle East: a systematic review" in Quality of Life Research.
Dr. Zhongzheng Fu and his collaborators published "Dorsolateral prefrontal activity supports a cognitive space organization of cognitive control" in eLife.
Dr. Bradley Lega and his collaborators published "Clinical safety and feasibility of a novel implantable neuroimmune modulation device for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis: initial results from the randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled RESET-RA study" in Bioelectronic Medicine.
Dr. Bradley Lega and his collaborators published "Laser interstitial thermal therapy for new and recurrent meningioma: a prospective and retrospective case series" in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Drs. Christopher Madden, Alex Valadka, and their collaborators published "Clinical Outcomes After Traumatic Brain Injury and Exposure to Extracranial Surgery: A TRACK-TBI Study" in the JAMA Surgery.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Association of preprocedural antiplatelet use with decreased thromboembolic complications for intracranial aneurysms undergoing intrasaccular flow disruption" in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Panagiotis Mastorakos and his collaborators published "Dual Layer vs Single Layer Woven EndoBridge Device in the Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis" in Neurosurgical Review.
Dr. Toral Patel and her collaborators published "Single-Fraction Versus Fractionated Preoperative Radiosurgery for Resected Brain Metastases: A PROPS-BM International Multicenter Cohort Study" in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Irregularity of instantaneous gamma frequency in the motor control network characterize visuomotor and proprioceptive information processing" in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Know DBS: patient perceptions and knowledge of deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease" in Therapeutic Advances in Neurological Disorders.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Prefrontal-subthalamic theta signaling mediates delayed responses during conflict processing" in Progress in Neurobiology.
Dr. Nader Pouratian and his collaborators published "Stereotactic radiosurgery in the management of non-small cell lung cancer brain metastases: a prospective study using the NeuroPoint Alliance Stereotactic Radiosurgery Registry" in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Angela Price and her collaborators published "Pediatric neuromodulation for drug-resistant epilepsy: Survey of current practices, techniques, and outcomes across US epilepsy centers" in Epilepsia Open.
Dr. Matthew Sun and his collaborators published "Approaches to the Middle Cerebellar Peduncle for Resection of Pontine Cavernomas" in Operative Neurosurgery.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Performance of the IMPACT and CRASH prognostic models for traumatic brain injury in a contemporary multicenter cohort: a TRACK-TBI study" in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Alex Valadka and his collaborators published "Isolated Traumatic Subarachnoid Hemorrhage on Head Computed Tomography Scan May Not Be Isolated: A TRACK-TBI Study" in the Journal of Neurotrauma.
Dr. Babu Welch and his collaborators published "Most Promising Approaches to Improve Brain AVM Management: ARISE I Consensus Recommendations" in Stroke.
Dr. Babu Welch and his collaborators published "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Medical Management of Poststroke Complications Among Patients With Acute Stroke" in the Journal of the American Heart Association.