Greats of Neurosurgery: Russell Meyers’ Enduring Impact on Functional Neurosurgery

Culminating more than 70 years of research and technological advancement, a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) publication by Dr. W. Jeffrey Elias, MD, nearly a decade ago launched a new wave of incisionless, ultrasonic therapies to treat functional and intracranial brain disease in the United States. Three years prior, Drs. Nir Lipsman and Andrés M. Lozano published a major proof-of-concept using this technology in four patients. These studies adapt the known power of ultrasound to the complexities and intricacies of brain disease.  

One of the first U.S. surgeons to apply ultrasound to the living human brain was Dr. Russell Meyers, a Brooklynite and polymath who graduated from Cornell in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression. Dr. Meyers took a surgical internship at The Brooklyn Hospital, but transferred to work as the first neurosurgical resident for Dr. Jefferson Browder, a trainee of Harvey Cushing’s, and as a neurology resident for Dr. Foster-Kennedy after dismissal from his internship, which he later described as being “’for amusing reasons, but all of them professional.’”

While with Dr. Browder, Dr. Meyers performed a successful awake, transcortical, transventricular resection of the anterior two-thirds of the caudate for a patient with hemiparkinsonism. Intraoperatively, the tremor subsided and remained so for several years following the surgery.  Video of this patient is striking and can be seen in the interview conducted by Dr. Roy C. Selby in 1989.

Dr. Meyers was recruited to transform the Neurosurgery Department at The University of Iowa where he collaborated with Drs. William and Frank Fry, adapting ultrasonic transducers to treat deep brain structures in the 1950s. The apparatus was too large to fit in a standard operating room (OR), so a new one was built. Together, through a craniotomy, they treated 48 patients with Parkinson’s, targeting deep brain tissue with ultrasonic energy.  The work of Dr. Meyers and Dr. Fry laid the foundation decades ago for the technology and treatments of today.

References

Abel TJ, Walch T, Howard MA 3rd. Russell Meyers (1905-1999): pioneer of functional and ultrasonic neurosurgery. J Neurosurg. 2016 Dec;125(6):1589-1595. doi: 10.3171/2015.9.JNS142811. Epub 2016 Feb 12. PMID: 26871378.

Harary M, Segar DJ, Huang KT, Tafel IJ, Valdes PA, Cosgrove GR. Focused ultrasound in neurosurgery: a historical perspective. Neurosurg Focus. 2018 Feb;44(2):E2. doi: 10.3171/2017.11.FOCUS17586. PMID: 29385919.

Selby, R. [American Association of Neurological Surgeons].  YouTube.  Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW_tBO1xaco.

Photo Credits: 

• Photo courtesy of American Association of Neurological Surgeons, YouTube, “Russell Meyers, MD interviewed by Roy C. Selby, MD”
• Photo courtesy of Frederick W. Kent photograph collection, University Archives, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa CIty, Iowa.

By Robert Bina, MD
Banner University Medical Center – Phoenix