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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Department of Pathology

Neuropathology

Neuropathology faculty specialize in diagnosing diseases of the nervous system, including degenerative diseases, tumors, infections, malformations, and neuromuscular disorders.

Teaching

Neuropathology faculty are highly active in teaching, including didactic lectures for medical students and pathology residents, as well as “at-the-scope” teaching of trainees. Residents in pathology, neurology, and neurosurgery all spend a month on a Neuropathology rotation

Faculty are involved in a number of regular didactic sessions, including:

  • Weekly Brain Cutting Conferences
  • Weekly Neuropathology Quality Assurance Conference and case review
  • Weekly multidisciplinary Brain Tumor Board
  • Weekly multidisciplinary CNS Metastatic Tumor Board
  • Monthly Brain Cutting Conferences featuring cases of interest to Neurology and Neuroradiology residents and fellows
  • Monthly Neuropathology Journal Club

The Northwestern Neuropathology Division offers an outstanding, comprehensive, ACGME-accredited neuropathology fellowship program, including training in surgical neuropathology, neurodegeneration, neuromuscular pathology, pediatric/perinatal neuropathology, forensic neuropathology, and ocular pathology.

Research

Research is a great strength of the Northwestern Neuropathology Division. Several of our faculty are NIH-funded principal investigators, with emphases on brain tumors and neurodegenerative diseases. We also support programmatic research in the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease and the Lou and Jean Malnati Brain Tumor Institute. Our division supports Northwestern’s NIA P30 ADRC, as well as its NCI P50 SPORE in Brain Cancer.

Patient Care

Our first responsibility is to our patients. We are one of a very few centers in the country who offers expert consultations in neurodegenerative cases, as well as in nervous system tumors and neuromuscular biopsies. Our faculty are contributors to the 2020 World Health Organization “Classification of Tumors of the Central Nervous System,” the upcoming ninth edition of “Greenfield’s Neuropathology,” and were part of the 2019 Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy (LATE): consensus working group. We have state-of-the-art molecular diagnostics assays for tumor and neurodegenerative evaluation, including next-generation sequencing and genomic copy number profiling. Genomic methylation profiling is under development.

Instructions for how to submit cases for consultation can be found here.

Contact Us

Craig M Horbinski

Professor, Pathology (Experimental Pathology), Neurological Surgery, Pathology (Neuropathology)
Medical Director, Neuropathology

Jared T Ahrendsen

Assistant Professor, Pathology (Neuropathology)

Daniel J Brat

Professor, Pathology (Experimental Pathology), Pathology (Neuropathology)

Rudolph J Castellani

Professor, Pathology (Neuropathology)

Pouya Jamshidi

Assistant Professor, Pathology (Neuropathology)

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