Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery Fellowship

Requirements

Candidates must have either completed or be in their senior year of an ACGME-accredited neurosurgery training program or the equivalent in their home country and secured a high recommendation and demonstrated scholarly achievement.

Curriculum

Fellows develop proficiency in stereotactic technique, image fusion and registration, and microelectrode recording for physiological targeting. Movement disorder training covers awake and asleep DBS surgery for Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, OCD, and epilepsy, as well as MR-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy. Epilepsy training includes SEEG planning and placement, responsive neurostimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, laser interstitial thermal therapy, and open resective surgery. Fellows also gain experience in microvascular decompression and percutaneous procedures for facial pain, hemifacial spasm, and glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Throughout training, fellows learn patient selection, preoperative counseling, device programming, complication management, and the fundamentals of building an independent functional neurosurgery practice.

Research Experience

Fellows are expected to contribute meaningfully to academic scholarship.

The fellow is expected to contribute at least one scholarly work and submit at least one abstract to a national meeting.

How to Apply

The application process occurs via the SF Match.

Fellowship and Faculty Contacts

John Rolston, MD, PhD
Neurosurgeon & Fellowship Director
jrolston@bwh.harvard.edu

Dr. John Rolston is a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist recognized internationally for his contributions to epilepsy surgery and movement disorder surgery. Dr. Rolston’s NIH-funded laboratory investigates how neural engineering can be used to map and ultimately rewire the diseased brain. The same tools can be used to better understand neural information processing and how it is disordered in illnesses like epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and psychiatric disease. Dr. Rolston ardently promotes patient safety in neurosurgery and has led several studies examining the frequency and causes of neurosurgical errors and complications. He has over 150 publications and has received numerous awards, such as the University of California’s Harold Rosegay Award for teaching and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons’ Basic Science Award for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery.

G. Rees Cosgrove, MD, FRCSC, FACS
Neurosurgeon - Division Chief, Functional
Rcosgrove2@bwh.harvard.edu

Dr. Rees Cosgrove is an internationally acclaimed expert in stereotactic and functional neurosurgery with over 35 years of experience in the field. He specializes in the surgical treatment of epilepsy and has performed over 1400 operations for patients with intractable seizures. Dr. Cosgrove also specializes in the surgical treatment of Parkinson’s disease, tremor, dystonia and other movement disorders. He has performed over 500 operations in patients with intractable movement disorders including thalamotomy, pallidotomy, deep brain stimulation and other neuromodulation procedures. Dr. Cosgrove was an early adopter of MRgFUS, and he has performed nearly 600 MRgFUS procedures and has been involved in many of the early clinical trials.

Pranav Nanda, MD
Neurosurgeon
Pnanda@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Pranav Nanda is a functional neurosurgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital specializing in the surgical management of epilepsy, movement disorders, psychiatric disorders, and pain. He completed neurosurgical residency and enfolded fellowship training in functional neurosurgery at MGH. As co-director of the Brain Modulation Lab, his research integrates neuroimaging, connectomics, and electrophysiology to develop network-based approaches to precision neuromodulation, with a focus on biomarker development and outcome prediction. He is actively involved as a co-investigator in multiple clinical trials spanning surgical neuromodulation and gene therapy and cell therapy for various neuropsychiatric conditions.

Dr. Nanda is deeply committed to education and mentorship, serving as MGH site education lead for the MGB Neurosurgery Residency and site director for the Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery Fellowship, with a focus on training technically skilled and innovative neurosurgeon-scientists.

R. Mark Richardson, MD, PhD
Neurosurgeon
Mark.Richardson@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Richardson's clinical expertise includes awake brain mapping during epilepsy and DBS surgery, robotic-assisted stereotactic surgery, and network surgery approaches to epilepsy, including Responsive Neurostimulation. He was Director of Epilepsy and Movement Disorders Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) from 2011-2019, establishing an internationally recognized intraoperative MRI neurosurgery program, encompassing DBS, gene therapy clinical trials, and laser thermal ablation. Dr. Richardson is also a neuroscientist who founded the Brain Modulation Lab, a human systems neuroscience lab studying brain electrophysiology and behavior in patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy, movement disorders, and psychiatric disease. The goal of this work is to facilitate the development and optimization of electrical and biological brain modulation therapies by filling critical gaps in our understanding of human brain function. Unique contributions of the Brain Modulation Lab include the first studies describing simultaneous cortical and subcortical recordings during speech, with support from the BRAIN Initiative, the first study describing biomarkers of therapeutic responsive neurostimulation for epilepsy, and the first study describing a biomarker of OCD symptomatology from sensing-enabled DBS recordings.

Jeffrey Schweitzer, MD, PhD
Neurosurgeon
Jschweitzer1@mgh.harvard.edu

As a board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Jeff Schweitzer is passionate about improving and restoring quality of life, especially for patients with Parkinson’s, epilepsy and other movement disorders. Dr. Schweitzer has over 30 years of experience in the field. Previously, he was the Chief of Neurosurgery at Wright State University-Premier Health Partners and he ran the Epilepsy, Movement Disorder and Pituitary Surgery Programs at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center for 13 years. He has also served as the Director of the Epilepsy and Functional Neurosurgery at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, OH. Most recently, he worked at Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego where he was named a top doctor by the San Diego County Medical Society. In addition to surgery for movement disorders, Dr. Schweitzer is experienced in many areas of surgery of the brain and spine as well as radiosurgery. Dr. Schweitzer has done extensive research on Parkinson's disease, and he speaks three languages: English, French and Mandarin Chinese.