Department of Neurosurgery

Chair: Ellen Air, M.D.

The Henry Ford Department of Neurosurgery offers a broad spectrum of neurosurgical services, each backed by strong teaching and research programs, providing patients the most recent advances in diagnosis and treatment technologies. Our nationally recognized clinicians provide expert, coordinated care in a variety of specialties including stroke, brain tumors, spine and movement disorders.

The Department of Neurosurgery has long been at the forefront of using the most advanced technologies to make surgery safer and to improve patient outcomes. Surgical advances include:

• Advanced neuro-navigation technologies for brain and spine surgeries, most recently incorporating the use of an inter-operative CT for spine surgeries and Brightmatter Surgical Solutions imaging, navigation and robotic optical platform.
• Minimally invasive spine surgery
• Awake craniotomy with brain mapping to preserve function (strength, sensation and speech)
• Deep brain stimulation techniques for movement disorders of all types
• Surgical techniques for epilepsy, including Rosa robot to perform stereotactic placement of depth electrodes (sEEG); RNS technology which uses an implantable device that detects and responds to seizure onset with electrical stimulation, similar to a defibrillator; and Visualase®, this minimally invasive technique uses laser ablation to destroy a targeted area of the brain that is causing seizures
• Intraoperative MRI for brain tumors and movement disorders, allowing patient to undergo these difficult surgeries while asleep