Neuroprosthetics--Future of Neurosurgery?

[LBJ 2 MIA]

Hi all;

I am "just" a lowly dental student here matching into oral surgery, but I have a sister in a neurosurgery residency.

The other night I was "fortunate" enough to have dinner with her and her fiance. He kept uttering all night about neuro-enhancement and neuropharmaceuticals.

Apparently he predicts within that within the next 10-20 years a new field of cosmetic Neurosurgery (and Neurology) will develop. Furthermore, he thinks that much like many of the dental procedures and cosmetic procedures, the market for such procedures will be cash based and highly lucrative. It makes sense that insurances will never cover the costs of such surgeries or drugs, but what is the likelihood that such enhancing psychosurgery ever hits the market?

Was he a few drinks over his limit, or was "Harvey Cushing Jr." on to something???

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[Raygun77]

Hi all;

I am "just" a lowly dental student here matching into oral surgery, but I have a sister in a neurosurgery residency.

The other night I was "fortunate" enough to have dinner with her and her fiance. He kept uttering all night about neuro-enhancement and neuropharmaceuticals.

Apparently he predicts within that within the next 10-20 years a new field of cosmetic Neurosurgery (and Neurology) will develop. Furthermore, he thinks that much like many of the dental procedures and cosmetic procedures, the market for such procedures will be cash based and highly lucrative. It makes sense that insurances will never cover the costs of such surgeries or drugs, but what is the likelihood that such enhancing psychosurgery ever hits the market?

Was he a few drinks over his limit, or was "Harvey Cushing Jr." on to something???

Cosmetic neurosurgery? lol I don't think there'll ever be much of a market for improving the looks of the brain and nerves .

But I get you. In the book "Another day in the frontal lobe", the author (also a neurosurgeon) theorizes a lot about intellectual augmentation through neurosurgery, and the author thinks it will be a reality as well. Time will tell i guess!

 

[skiz knot]

Hi all;

The other night I was "fortunate" enough to have dinner with her and her fiance. He kept uttering all night about neuro-enhancement and neuropharmaceuticals.

I thought you were actually going to talk about neuroprosthetics in terms of limbs, etc... That will be a revolutionary field that very interesting developments are already nearing reality. It will be interesting to see who becomes the leaders in the field between NSG and Ortho. I'm biased to think that PNS should be Ortho as classically the US model does not have much extremity work for neurosurgery.

I kinda shudder when thinking about neurosurgeons doing carpal and cubital tunnel surgery, but that's another topic all together.

 

[stockraider]

I thought you were actually going to talk about neuroprosthetics in terms of limbs, etc... That will be a revolutionary field that very interesting developments are already nearing reality. It will be interesting to see who becomes the leaders in the field between NSG and Ortho. I'm biased to think that PNS should be Ortho as classically the US model does not have much extremity work for neurosurgery.

I kinda shudder when thinking about neurosurgeons doing carpal and cubital tunnel surgery, but that's another topic all together.

wait...why would you "shudder" when a neurosurgeon does carpal or cubtial tunnel surgery? when I talked to a neurosurgeon and asked him if he only does surgery on the brain, he told me "i go where the nerve goes" and went on to tell me that a neurosurgeon is trained and drilled to be a surgeon in all parts of the body because nerves don't end in the brain. Orthos are definitely smart enough to do surgery on PNS nerves but don't discount neurosurgeons who in some cases have been studying nerves and have had a fascination of them since their undergraduate days.

 

[Encephalectomy]

wait...why would you "shudder" when a neurosurgeon does carpal or cubtial tunnel surgery? when I talked to a neurosurgeon and asked him if he only does surgery on the brain, he told me "i go where the nerve goes" and went on to tell me that a neurosurgeon is trained and drilled to be a surgeon in all parts of the body because nerves don't end in the brain. Orthos are definitely smart enough to do surgery on PNS nerves but don't discount neurosurgeons who in some cases have been studying nerves and have had a fascination of them since their undergraduate days.

I'm hoping to be a neurosurgeon someday, but I think that what skiznot is saying isn't unreasonable. Many neurosurgery residencies are fairly weak in their exposure to peripheral nerve surgery and your average orthopod definitely has a lot more experience operating on the extremities during residency (though mostly not with the nerves). Carpal tunnel release is shared by neurosurg, ortho, and plastics and I think that you could probably be comfortable with that type of operation out of any of the specialties provided your residency had decent exposure. More complex peripheral nerve surgery is usually done by fellowship trained folks though.