Assistant Professor | Department of Neurosurgery | RWJMS
Fellowship Trained in Functional Neurosurgery, Epilepsy Surgery & Neurocritical Care
Dr. Morsi is an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, who specializes in functional and epilepsy neurosurgery surgery. Additional surgical expertise includes neuro oncology, Spine degenerative disease and neuro trauma. He serves as Director of Neurotrauma.
Dr. Morsi received his medical degree from University of Alexandria, School of Medicine in 2008. Following medical school, he worked at NYU Langone medical center as a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of neurosurgery. His clinical and basic science research involved different areas in neurosurgery including brain tumor and gamma knife radiotherapy, degenerative disc disease and vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) in treatment resistant epilepsy. During his time in the lab of Drs. Wadghiri and Turnbull he succeeded in developing a mouse model of melanoma brain metastasis and successfully utilized in vivo MRI for the characterization of tumor growth. This garnered interest of the Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group (IMCG) at NYU leading to a collaborative effort investigating MicroRNA in melanoma brain metastasis pathogenesis.
Dr. Morsi completed a residency in neurosurgery at Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. During his residency training he underwent a dedicated fellowship year in epilepsy surgery under the mentorship of Dr. William Bingaman, a prominent epilepsy surgeon, learning complex epilepsy surgery with use of language mapping, awake craniotomy, laser ablation, and robotic stereoelectroencephalography surgery for epileptogenic foci localization. He subsequently completed a functional neurosurgery fellowship at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, with a focus on deep brain stimulation for movement disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and treatment resistant major depression.
Dr. Morsi specializes in functional and epilepsy neurosurgery as well as general neurosurgery. Utilizes deep brain stimulation (DBS) and focused ultrasound for treatment of various movement disorders including Parkinson’s disease, essential tremors, Tourette’s disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) with special interest in treatment resistant major depressive disorder. In addition, he utilizes all types of epilepsy surgery techniques, ranging from traditional anterior temporal lobectomy, corpus callosotomy, lesionectomy, functional hemispherotomy, and vagal nerve stimulation, to minimally invasive MRI-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT), robotic electrode placement and stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) to localize a seizure focus and guide epilepsy surgery to newer neuromodulation techniques, such as responsive neurostimulation (RNS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS). In addition, Dr. Morsi specializes in the treatment of various neurosurgical conditions, including brain and spinal tumors, degenerative disc disease and spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain.
Dr. Morsi has a research interest in epilepsy surgery outcome, brain tumors and deep brain stimulation. He has extensively published peer-reviewed articles in leading neurosurgical journals.
Currently, Dr. Morsi sees and treats patients at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, University Hospital at Rutgers – New Jersey Medical School.
__________________________________________________________________
Education:
Medical School:
Faculty of Medicine, University of Alexandria, 2000-2008
Fellowship:
Functional Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 2022-2023
Epilepsy Neurosurgery Enfolded Fellowship, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 2018-2019
Neuro-Critical Care Enfolded Fellowship, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 2017-2018
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Department of Neurosurgery,
NYU Langone Medical Center, 2008-2013
Residency:
Cleveland Clinic Foundation – Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, 2013-2022
__________________________________________________________________
Research Interests:
- Functional and Epilepsy neurosurgery:
▫ Application of Stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) in lesional epilepsy and its effect on surgical planning and outcome.
▫ Vagal Nerve Stimulation (VNS) in treatment of medically refractory epilepsy. - Brain tumor research:
▫ Gamma Knife Radiosurgery in treatment of brain metastasis.
▫ MicroRNA in melanoma brain metastasis pathogenesis.
▫ Mouse model of melanoma brain metastasis, model development and the implementation of in-vivo MRI for characterization of tumor growth. - Brain neuroimaging:
__________________________________________________________________
Publications:
- Imtiaz Z, Kato A, Kopell BH, Qasim S, Davis A, Martinez L, Heflin M, Kulkarni K, Morsi A, GU X, Saez I. Human Substantia Nigra Neurons Encode Reward Expectations. Version 1. bioRxiv. Preprint. 2024 May 11. doi: 10.1101/2024.05.10.593406
- Morsi A, Sharma A, Golubovsky J, Bulacio J, McGovern R, Jehi L, Bingaman W. Does Stereoelectroencephalography Add Value in Patients with Lesional Epilepsy? World Neurosurg. 2022 Nov, 167: e196-e203.
- Casseb RF, De Campos BM, Morita-Sherman M, Morsi A, Kondylis E, Bingaman WE, Jones SE, Jehi L, Cendes F. ResectVol: A tool to automatically segment and characterize lacunas in brain images. Epilepsia Open. 2021 Dec;6(4):720-726.
- Morsi A, Maldonado A, Pestana-Knight E, Lal D, Bingaman W. Vasospasm Following Hemispherectomy: A Case Report of a Novel Complication. World Neurosurg. 2020 May, 137:357-361.
- Morsi A, Gaziel-Sovran A, Cruz-Munoz W, Kerbel RS, Golfinos JG, Hernando E, Wadghiri YZ. Development and characterization of a clinically relevant mouse model of melanoma brain metastasis. Pigment cell & melanoma research. 2013; 26 (5): 743-5.
- Morsi A, Gazial A, Baig H, Kerbel RS, Golfinos JG, Zaim Wadghiri Y., Hernando E. New Mouse Models of Melanoma Brain Metastasis Recapitulate Differences in Brain Tropism and Metastatic Growth Pattern. J Clin Oncol. 2012; e19015: No15_suppl.
- Elliott RE, Tanweer O, Boah A, Morsi A, Ma T, Frempong-Boadu A, Smith ML. Is external cervical orthotic bracing necessary after posterior atlantoaxial fusion with modern instrumentation: meta-analysis and review of literature World Neurosurgery. 2013; 79 (2): 369-74. e1-12.
- Elliott RE, Rodgers SD, Bassani L, Morsi A, Geller EB, Carlson C, Devinsky O, Doyle WK. Vagus nerve stimulation for children with treatment-resistant epilepsy: a consecutive series of 141 cases. Journal of neurosurgery. Pediatrics. 2011; 7 (5): 491-500.
- Rush S, Elliott RE, Morsi A, Mehta N, Spriet J, Narayana A, Donahue B, Parker EC, Golfinos JG. Incidence, timing, and treatment of new brain metastases after Gamma Knife surgery for limited brain disease: the case for reducing the use of whole-brain radiation therapy. Journal of neurosurgery. 2011; 115 (1): 37-48.
- Elliott RE, Morsi A, Tanweer O, Grobelny B, Geller E, Carlson C, Devinsky O, Doyle WK. Efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation over time: review of 65 consecutive patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy treated with VNS > 10 years. Epilepsy & behavior: E&B. 2011; 20 (3): 478-83.
__________________________________________________________________
Location:
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick Ambulatory Pavilion
10 Plum Street – 5th Floor
New Brunswick, NJ 08901