System Director of Neurosurgical Physiology | Department of Neurosurgery | RWJMS
Associate Professor | Department of Neurosurgery & Neurology| RWJMS
Vasileios Kokkinos received the diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering and the MSc in “Hardware-Software Integrated Systems” from the Engineering School of the University of Patras, Greece, in 1998 and 2001 respectively. After a few years in the microelectronics industry, he shifted his career interest towards brain-related applications and in 2003 enrolled in the MSc program “Basic Medical Sciences: Neurosciences” of the Medical School of the University of Patras, with a thesis on the rat hippocampus neurophysiology. Simultaneously, he attended the undergraduate program of the Philosophy Department of the University of Patras, from which he graduated in 2005, with a thesis on neuroscience-derived theories of mind regarding visual perception. In 2007, he completed the “Neurological Sciences” MSc program at McGill University, with a thesis on human eye-head motor co-ordination neurophysiology.
Under the supervision of George K. Kostopoulos, MD, PhD, he completed a PhD thesis on the neurophysiology of normal human sleep at the Medical School of the University of Patras in 2010. One year of his PhD training (2008-2009) was devoted to a specialized training/research fellowship in epilepsy at the National Society for Epilepsy, in London, England, focused on fMRI, DTI and EEG-fMRI for pre-surgical evaluation of epilepsy, under the supervision of John S. Duncan, MD, PhD, and Louis Lemieux, PhD. At the same time, he was accepted to the MSc course on “Epilepsy” at King’s College in London, from which he graduated in 2009 with distinction, with a thesis on invasive electrical cortical stimulation for epilepsy surgery patients under the supervision of Gonzalo Alarcon, MD, PhD, and Antonio Valentin, MD, PhD. He also attended the research team of the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology and Epilepsies at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, where he was trained in pediatric and adult epileptic EEG by Chrysostomos P. Panayiotopoulos, MD, PhD, and Michalis Koutroumanidis, MD, PhD.
From 2009 to 2016 he was head of neurophysiology, functional neuroimaging and neuronavigation of the pediatric and adult epilepsy program at St. Luke’s Hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece; a clinical appointment requiring constant collaboration and coordination between the neurology, radiology and neurosurgery departments. His responsibilities included the performance and supervision of procedures during both the non-invasive (video-EEG, MRI, fMRI, EEG-fMRI, DTI-tractography) and the invasive phases (acute and chronic ECoG, cortical electrical stimulation, neuronavigation) of the epilepsy surgery workflow. From 2010 to 2017 he held a post-doctoral fellowship position at the Neurophysiology Unit of the University of Patras Medical School under the mentorship of Dr. Kostopoulos, with a focus on the neurophysiologic relations of sleep and epilepsy. In collaboration with St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, he completed a second PhD thesis on neurophysiological features of focal and generalized epileptic syndromes of childhood in 2016.
In 2017, he joined the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh as Instructor. He supported the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program of the University of Pittsburgh in surgical sEEG planning, intraoperative coordination and electrode implantation optimization for sEEG procedures, 3D reconstruction of sEEG implantation, iEEG interpretation, and cortical electrical stimulation. Dr. Kokkinos became Instructor of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2019, focusing on clinical epilepsy research and supporting the Epilepsy Surgery and Clinical MEG Programs in the context of pre-surgical evaluation, surgical planning and invasive procedures. In 2022, he completed a third PhD thesis on functional neuroimaging for epilepsy and brain tumor surgery. In 2023 he joined the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL, as Epilepsy Clinical Neurophysiology and Image Processing Specialist, to develop the multi-modal integration workflow for surgical planning and decision-making, and held an Assistant Professor of Neurology position at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.
In September 2025 he was appointed Director of Neurosurgical Physiology at the Department of Neurosurgery, supporting the surgical workflows of the adult and pediatric epilepsy programs of Rutgers and Cooperman Barnabas. He is currently Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
He is board-certified for epilepsy surgery neurophysiology (CNIM, CMEG, NA-CLTM), member of the ABRET Board of Directors, and Fellow of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.
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Education:
Undergraduate:
Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Patras, Greece, 1998.
Philosophy, University of Patras, Greece, 2005.
Postgraduate:
MSc in Hardware-Software Integrated Systems (MSCE), Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, Greece, 2001.
MSc in Applications of Basic Medical Sciences: Neurosciences (MMedSci), Medical School, University of Patras, Greece, 200.
MSc in Neurological Sciences (MNeuroSci), Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Medical School, McGill University, Canada, 2007.
MSc in Epilepsy, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK, 2009.
PhD in Basic Medical Sciences: Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Patras, Greece, 2010.
PhD in Life Science Informatics: Neuroinformatics, Medical School, University of Patras, Greece, 2016.
PhD in Medicine: Functional Neuroimaging, Medical School, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece, 2022.
Fellowships:
Training/Research Fellowship in Functional Neuroimaging for Epilepsy, UCL Institute of Neurology, UK, 2008-2009.
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Neurophysiology of Sleep & Epilepsy, Medical School, University of Patras, Greece, 2010-2017.
Training Fellowship in Stereo-Electroencephalography (sEEG), Department of Neurology, Grenoble-Alpes University Hospital, France, 2018.
Board Certification:
Magnetoencephalography Neurophysiologist (CMEG), ABRET.
Neuro-Analyst for Long Term Monitoring (NA-CLTM), ABRET.
Long Term Monitoring Neurophysiologist (CLTM), ABRET.
Intraoperative Monitoring Neurophysiologist (CNIM), ABRET.
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Research Interests:
My career as a board-certified clinical neurophysiologist, as well as a clinical researcher, has been devoted to the fields of epilepsy and epilepsy surgery. During the past 14 years, I have accumulated significant clinical experience working as a professional in 4th-level comprehensive epilepsy centers, providing specialized neurophysiology and functional neuroimaging services in pre-surgical evaluation and surgical planning procedures. This on-going clinical experience allowed me to develop expertise in analytical methods for brain mapping, from the level of fine neurophysiological entities (e.g. sleep spindles, interictal epileptic spikes, etc) to the level of cognitive functions by means of neuroimaging (e.g. language and memory fMRI) and electrical cortical stimulation. My ultimate clinical research objective is the quantitative optimization of pre-surgical evaluation methods for mapping epileptic and normal brain networks, aiming in establishing an evidence-based decision-making process for epilepsy treatment. In the long-term, the development of such methods will improve the seizure localization procedure by suppressing false-positive biases and highlighting predictive markers for favorable post-surgical outcomes.
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- Presurgical Evaluation for Epilepsy Surgery: The goal of pre-surgical evaluation of epilepsy patients is to collect enough information for a “localization of epilepsy onset” hypothesis to be formulated. The hypothesis in turn leads to the implantation scheme, and the combination of intracranial EEG and electrical stimulation data determines the subsequent treatment strategy. The decision-making variables are numerous and individualized to each patient, rendering each evaluation process a considerable challenge. The simple fact that global epilepsy surgery outcomes include a considerable percentage of failures to achieve adequate seizure control suggests that the existing localization methods are yet to be optimized. The primary focus of my research is to improve the pre-surgical evaluation methods of mapping epileptic and normal brain networks, and thereby contribute to an enhanced evidence-based decision-making process for epilepsy treatment. My long-term goal is to facilitate the seizure localization procedure by developing methodologies that suppress false-positive biases and highlight predictive markers for favorable post-surgical outcomes.
- Interpretation of the Intracranial EEG: Determining the best surgical approach for refractory patients relies heavily on intracranial monitoring and the interpretation of the intracranial EEG (iEEG). Although the localization of epileptogenic brain regions by iEEG has been the surgical decision-making gold standard for more than 70 years, its interpretation is still complicated by a lack of consensus regarding whether specific iEEG waveform patterns reflect normal physiology (non-epileptic) or epileptiform activity. This knowledge gap can lead to false positive evaluations that misguide decision-making and recommendations for surgical treatment.
- Closed-loop Cortical Electrical Stimulation for Epilepsy: The responsive neurostimulator (RNS) has been introduced as an alternative treatment for patients who suffer from epileptic seizures but are refractory to both anti-epileptic medication and surgery. Even though evidence strongly support RNS as a provider of improved seizure control and quality of life for refractory epilepsy patients, no stimulation-induced electrophysiological biomarkers have been described for differentiating responders from non-responders. Latest findings show that indirect modulation of the electrographic seizure pattern features, manifesting as time- and frequency-domain modulation over time, may correspond to the progressive nature of documented responsiveness to RNS. Chronic electrical stimulation may progressively disrupt the connectivity of the epileptogenic network by reducing the core synchronized population, thereby resulting in less severe or subclinical seizure manifestation.
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Publications:
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Location:
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 10 Plum St, 5th Floor, New Brunswick, NJ 08901