ABOUT
We are an international group of neurosurgeons, neurologists, neurophysiologists, and preclinical investigators with a major interest in cranial nerve disorders.
MISSION
Our Mission is to promote the knowledge and treatment of cranial nerve disorders.
The twelve cranial nerves arise directly from the brain and provide our ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel our face. We use these nerves to smile, cry, chew, swallow, and speak. There are numerous medical conditions that affect the function of these nerves and result in severe disabilities for patients. Over the last 100 years, neurosurgeons have become very familiar with a small group of these cranial nerve disorders caused by compression of the nerves, usually by a blood vessel. Trigeminal neuralgia, hemi-facial spasm, and glossopharyngeal neuralgia have become well known within the medical community and an operation to decompress these nerves, microvascular decompression or MVD, has become the standard of care for many patients. Knowledge and interest in the MVD operation was the starting point for our Society. We are an international group of neurosurgeons, neurologists, neurophysiologists, and researchers with a major interest in cranial nerve disorders. Our meetings bring together the experts in these conditions from around the world so we can learn from each other and advance this field of medicine. Our Society hopes to i) to increase patient awareness of these conditions, ii) improve patient access to MVD surgical therapy across the world, and iii) to ensure the highest educational, technical, and professional standards for the members of our Society.
OUR TEAM
Dr. Christopher Honey is a tenured full Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He completed medical school at the University of Toronto and a doctoral degree at Oxford University while a Canadian Rhodes Scholar. Dr. Honey completed neurosurgical training at the University of British Columbia and accepted a position at Vancouver General Hospital to develop functional neurosurgery. He has treated over 1500 patients with trigeminal neuralgia and has performed more than 500 cases of microvascular decompression (MVD). In 2016, he was the neurosurgical lead in the team that first recognized and cured hemi-laryngopharyngeal spasm (HELPS). This condition causes intermittent choking and coughing due to a unilateral vascular compression of the vagus nerve and can be cured with MVD. As president of the World Neurosurgical Federation for Cranial Nerve Disorders, Dr. Honey plans i) to increase patient awareness of these conditions, ii) improve patient access to MVD surgical therapy across the world, and iii) to ensure the highest educational, technical, and professional standards for the members of our Society.
Dr. Massimiliano Visocchi is Professor of Neurosurgery at the Catholic University of Rome, Italy and visiting Professor at the Shanghai University, George’s University of London and at Mumbai University. He received full Professorship in 2018. He is the medical Director of Neurosurgery and second degree level Master in Surgery of Craniovertebral Junction since 2013. Dr. Visocchi is the founder of the Research Center in Surgery of Craniovertebral Junction at the Catholic University of Rome, Italy and the Chairman of the operative unit. He is the member of many neurosurgical societies and is involved in the board of several societies. Dr. Visocchi is the President elect of the International Society of Reconstructive Neurosurgery (ISRN). He has produced over 400 scientific publications, authored 6 monographic books, editor of 4 monographic issues of indexed peer reviewed journals and has given invited lectures in over 350 international and national congresses and courses. Dr. Visocchi interests are in general neurosurgery, craniovertebral junction, complex spine neurosurgery, neurotramatology, and functional neurosurgery.
Dr. Jin Woo Chang graduated from Yonsei University College of Medicine and completed his neurosurgical residency and fellowship for stereotactic and functional neurosurgery at Severance Hospital with Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. For two years, he served as an exchange Professor at the University of Chicago, conducting research in movement disorders. Dr. Chang specializes in Stereotactic and Functional neurosurgery and his main interest is the neuromodulation of the Central Nervous System with innovative techniques (electrical stimulation, focused ultrasound, etc.). He is Professor at Yonsei University and holds a concurrent Professorship at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Department of Bio and Brain Engineering. Currently, Dr. Chang serves as a section editor of World Neurosurgery. He is also a member of the editorial board for the official Journal of World Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (WSSFN) and the Journal of the International Neuromodulation Society (INS). Dr. Chang serves as vice-president of the WSSFN. Dr. Chang has published more than 180 academic papers and co-authored more than eight prominent neurosurgery textbooks. He has successfully completed 30 government research projects, 5 of these commissioned by foreign research organizations or foundations.
Dr. Jun Zhong is Professor of Neurosurgery at Shanghai JiaoTong University, China. As a neurosurgical fellow, he has worked at Wayne State University, University of Michigan, and University of Arkansas. Currently, Dr. Zhong is the Vice-Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery in XinHua Hospital, Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine in Shanghai. He has performed more than 4,000 cases of microvascular decompression (MVD) for treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm, glossopharyngeal neuralgia and hemimasticatory spasm. Dr. Zhong has put forward “safe and easy” technical strategy for this functional operation. Also, he has proposed a novel hypothesis regarding the mechanism of the cranial nerve hyperexcitability disorders based on a series of experimental studies, for which he was awarded the International Travel Scholarship in the 81st AANS meeting in New Orleans, USA. Led by Professors Li and Zhong, the XinHua team took the lead in drafting a consensus of Chinese specialists in terms of the diagnosis and treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm after they published over 100 relevant papers and edited 4 books. It was also them who have established this international society focusing on the cranial nerve disorders in 2017.
Dr. Dirk De Ridder is the Neurological Foundation professor of Neurosurgery at the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago in New Zealand. His main clinical interest is microvascular decompression surgery, skull base surgery including vestibular schwannomas and pituitary surgery. His initial research interest was and still is the understanding and treatment of phantom perceptions (sound, pain), especially by use of functional imaging navigated non-invasive (TMS, tDCS, tACS, tRNS, LORETA neurofeedback) and invasive (implants) neuromodulation techniques. His current research interest is to understand commonalities in different diseases such as in thalamocortical dysrhythmias (pain, tinnitus, Parkinson disease, depression, slow wave epilepsy) and Reward deficiency syndromes (addiction, OCD, Personality disorders, etc). A third pillar of his research relates to the neurobiological underpinnings of the ‘self” and ‘other’ in the brain, as it relates to social interactions, philosophy and religion. He has developed “burst” and “noise” stimulation as novel stimulation designs for implants, and is working on other stimulation designs. He has published 37 book chapters, co-edited the Textbook of Tinnitus, and has authored or co-authored 270 articles. He is reviewer for 90 scientific journals.
Dr. Marc Sindou is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Lyon, France. He received his PhD degree on “Electrophysiological generators of the cerebral cortex in Humans” and his MD degree on “Dorsal Root Entry Zone as a target for pain surgery” in the 1970s. After his neurosurgical training, he benefited from two Fellowships, first in Micro-neurosurgery in Kantonspital in Zurich with Professor Gazi Yasargil, then for Functional Neurosurgery in Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University in Boston with Professor William Sweet. Medical activity in Lyon was then directed to: 1) Functional Neurosurgery of Pain, Spasticity in Adults and Children, Epilepsy and Trigeminal Neuralgias; 2) Microsurgery of Giant Aneurysms, Meningiomas, Venous sinus repair and Cranial Nerve Vascular Compression Syndromes; 3) Neurophysiology applied to Neurosurgery. Surgical activity, together with his superb team and pupils, amounted at 25000 surgeries over a 40-year period of time. Medical and scientific experience has been published in 698 articles, 38 book-chapters and 7 books, and through 174 invited-comments or editorials in International Journals. His Research Gate score is 47.37 (i.e, higher than 97.5 % of RG members), with h-index of 51 and h-index excluding self-citations of 48. He was a Founding member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (1976), the President of the World Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (1997-2001), a Vice-president of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (1999-2003), a European Teacher in the EANS Training Committee (1985-2014), and President of the French Speaking Neurosurgical Society (2007-2010). He delivered 320 invited-lectures internationally. He was awarded the European Lecture by the EANS in 2007, the Spiegel and Wycis Medal by the WSSFN in 2009, the Award of the Ten Masters in Neurosurgery by the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies in 2009, and the Award of Top-neurosurgeon for CN disorders in 2018. He was honoured by 35 Visiting-Professorships, especially in the fields of Functional Neurosurgery and on the topic of Surgery in the DREZ, a concept that he introduced for Pain and Spasticity in 1974. He fully trained, in addition to several generations of French neurosurgeons, more than fifty foreign promising neurosurgeons, and still keeps fruitful collaboration with a large number of them.
Dr. Anthony Kaufmann is a graduate of the University of Manitoba School of Medicine where he also completed his neurosurgery residency and received his Masters of Science Degree in Surgery. During his training, he received several research and achievement awards, as well as athletic scholarships and basketball All-Star awards.
In 1994 he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, and specialized his practice in cerebrovascular and cranial base neurosurgery. He was a member of the ``Stroke Team`` at the Pittsburgh Stroke Institute. Dr. Kaufmann also developed a special interest in cranial nerve disorders and microvascular decompression surgery, while working with the Pioneer in this field, Dr. Peter J. Jannetta.
Dr. Kaufmann returned to Canada and joined the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary in 1997 where he established a cranial nerve subspecialty clinic. He was also the neurosurgical representative for the Calgary LINAC Radiosurgery Planning Committee and Treatment Team.
In November 2000, Dr. Kaufmann accepted the position of Associate Professor in the Section of Neurosurgery, University of Manitoba. He established and is the Director of the Centre for Cranial Nerve Disorders and supervisor of the Intraoperative Monitoring Program in Winnipeg. He was appointed Co-director of Canada's first Gamma Knife Surgery Centre, and is also Co-director of the Centre for Cerebrovascular Disease.
Dr. Kaufmann is a member of the Medical Advisory Board for the Hemifacial Spasm Association, Acoustic Neuroma Association of Canada, and Medical Advisor for the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association of Canada. Dr. Kaufmann also maintains an active clinical research program. He has published over 85 articles, book chapters, and abstracts and has also presented over 100 scientific papers and invited lectures.