Bringing High-Tech Solutions to Neurosurgery with Dr. Lawton, President and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute

How is technology shaping the future of neurosurgery? In this episode, Bill sits down with Dr. Lawton, President and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute, Robert F. Spetzler Endowed Chair for Neurosciences, and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Lawton discusses the ways he is bringing new technologies and innovation to neurosurgery, as well as how it could improve patients outcomes and broaden the field’s scope of impact.

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Key Quotes:

“If we're able to have these huge datasets where we can take all the brain tumor patients and then go back 10 years before they were ever diagnosed and see what was abnormal then, it might open up these ways to predict or diagnose or even prevent some of these diseases before they get started.” 

“It's a technological revolution that has all of a sudden allowed us to envision things in neurosurgery that incorporate this tech in ways that we never had 20 years ago… I think probably the best example of that is the brain computer interface. There's the perfect example  of how technology and engineering brought into neurosurgery is going to change the world.”

“Instead of taking just six variables, we can take a hundred variables and we can feed them into the black box of AI, and we can look at way more than just those six. And maybe our decision making will be better. Maybe our predictive powers will be different.”

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Timestamps: 

(02:26) Integrating technology in neurosurgery

(06:37) Brain-Computer Interfaces 

(09:56) Expanding neurosurgical training

(19:09) AI in neurosurgery: Diagnostics and beyond

(29:16) Mysteries of the Mind and understanding the mind

(34:35) Future of neurosurgery in emotional and cognitive interventions

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Credits:

Over the Edge is hosted by Bill Pfeifer, and was created by Matt Trifiro and Ian Faison. Executive producers are Matt Trifiro, Ian Faison, Jon Libbey and Kyle Rusca. The show producer is Erin Stenhouse. The audio engineer is Brian Thomas. Additional production support from Elisabeth Plutko.

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Links:

Watch Dr. Lawton share his vision for how AI and edge solutions can be used to transform neurosurgery

Follow Dr. Lawton on X and Instagram

Learn more about Barrow Neurological Institute and neurosurgery

Get to know Barrow President and CEO Michael T. Lawton, MD

Discover more about Barrow Neurological Institute's newest research quest to solve the mysteries of the mind

Watch Dr. Lawton operate in this collection of neurosurgical operative videos

Find out what it's like to be a neurosurgeon by watching three seasons of Barrow Neurosurgery Base Camp

Follow Barrow Neurological Institute on