Dr. Vanessa Milanese is a functional neurosurgeon at A Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil and holds an adjunct assistant professorship of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
#43 Vanessa Milanese – Bridging Anatomy and Neurosurgery: A Deep Dive into White Matter Dissections and Legacy of Dr. Al Rhoton
In this conversation with Dr. Vanessa Milanese, we cover the importance of anatomy in neurosurgery and explore her intriguing work in both fields – and how they cross-informed one another. Vanessa is a functional neurosurgeon at A Beneficencia Portuguesa Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil and holds an adjunct assistant professorship of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. We talk about her stellar work in combining her neurosurgical activity with anatomical work – which involves dissections of the white matter of postmortem brains using the Klingler’s method. We will talk about the rare community of neurosurgeons involved in similar activities, world-wide and the big influence Dr. Al Rhoton had on the field and on Vanessa’s career. We thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and learned a lot – and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we did! Thank you so much for tuning in!
Pacheco-Barrios, Niels; Horn, Andreas (2023). #43 Vanessa Milanese – Bridging Anatomy and Neurosurgery: A Deep Dive into White Matter Dissections and Legacy of Dr. Al Rhoton. figshare. Media. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24355252.v1
References and Links:
Holanda, Vanessa M., Michael S. Okun, Erik H. Middlebrooks, Abuzer Gungor, Margaret E. Barry, John Forder, and Kelly D. Foote. 2020. “Postmortem Dissections of Common Targets for Lesion and Deep Brain Stimulation Surgeries.” Neurosurgery 86 (6): 860–72.
Holanda, Vanessa Milanesi, Maria Cristina Chavantes, Xingjia Wu, and Juanita J. Anders. 2017. “The Mechanistic Basis for Photobiomodulation Therapy of Neuropathic Pain by near Infrared Laser Light.” Lasers in Surgery and Medicine 49 (5): 516–24.
https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/pdf/10.1002/lsm.22628.pdf
Middlebrooks, Erik H., Ibrahim S. Tuna, Leonardo Almeida, Sanjeet S. Grewal, Joshua Wong, Michael G. Heckman, Elizabeth R. Lesser, et al. 2018. “Structural Connectivity-Based Segmentation of the Thalamus and Prediction of Tremor Improvement Following Thalamic Deep Brain Stimulation of the Ventral Intermediate Nucleus.” NeuroImage. Clinical 20 (October): 1266–73.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6308387/
Middlebrooks, Erik H., Sanjeet S. Grewal, and Vanessa M. Holanda. 2019. “Complexities of Connectivity-Based DBS Targeting: Rebirth of the Debate on Thalamic and Subthalamic Treatment of Tremor.” NeuroImage. Clinical.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543122/
Ferreira, Tancredo Alcântara, Jr, Erik H. Middlebrooks, Wen Hung Tzu, Mateus Reghin Neto, and Vanessa Milanesi Holanda. 2020. “Postmortem Dissections of the Papez Circuit and Nonmotor Targets for Functional Neurosurgery.” World Neurosurgery 144 (December): e866–75.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1878875020320969?via%3Dihub
Additional resources we talked about:
Mayo Functional Neuro Course 2024:
https://ce.mayo.edu/functionalneuro2024
Scaniverse app for 3D brain reconstruction: https://apps.apple.com/br/app/scaniverse-3d-scanner/id1541433223?l=en-GB
Rhoton’s book: https://shop.lww.com/Rhoton-Cranial-Anatomy-and-Surgical-Approaches/p/9781975226879
Stênio Holanda Filho Q&A book: https://www.dilivros.com.br/livro-neuroanatomia-pratica-e-ilustrada-questoes–e-respostas–3d-9788580531527,h18213.html
Deep Brain Stimulation: A case-based approach
Colleagues mentioned in the episode include:
- Abuzer Güngör (Neurosurgeon in Istanbul, Turkey)
- Albert L. Rhoton Jr. (Neurosurgeon in Gainesville, USA)
- Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (Neurosurgeon in Jacksonville, USA)
- Eduardo Alho (Neurosurgeon in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Erich Fonoff (Neurosurgeon in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Erik Middlebrooks (Neuroradiologist in Jacksonville, USA)
- Evandro de Oliveira (Neurosurgeon in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Gail Rosseau (Neurosurgeon in Washington DC, USA)
- Georgios Skandalakis (Neurosurgery Resident, Athens, Greece)
- Harith Akram (Neurosurgeon in London, UK)
- João Paulo de Almeida (Neurosurgeon in Jacksonville, USA)
- José Oswaldo de Oliveira Jr. (Neurosurgeon in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Juanita Anders (Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Bethesda, USA)
- Kelly Foote (Neurosurgeon in Gainesville, USA)
- María Peris Celda (Neurosurgeon in Rochester, USA)
- Maria Cristina Chavantes (Professor of Cardio Pneumology and Laser in Biomedicine in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Marie Krüger (Neurosurgeon in London, UK)
- Marwan Hariz (Neurosurgeon in Umeå, Sweden)
- Maximiliano Nuñes (Neurosurgeon in Buenos Aires, Argentina)
- Michael Okun (Neurologist in Gainesville, USA)
- Paulo Franceschini (Neurosurgeon in Caxias do Sul, Brazil)
- Pravin Khemani (Neurologist in Seattle, USA)
- Richard Gonzalo Parraga (Neurosurgeon in Cochabamba-Cercado, Bolivia)
- Sanjeet Grewal (Neurosurgeon in Jacksonville, USA)
- Shilpa Chitnis (Neurologist in Dallas, USA)
- Stênio Holanda Filho (Neurosurgeon in São Paulo, Brazil)
- Suzanne Haber (Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology, Rochester, USA)
- Uğur Türe (Neurosurgeon in Istanbul, Turkey)
Some pictures that Dr. Vanessa Milanese shared with us after the meeting!
