Siyar Bahadir, MD, PhD(c)

Neurosurgeon · Physician-Scientist · Clinical AI · Global Health

I am a neurosurgeon, physician-scientist and software builder working across clinical AI, bioelectronic medicine, connectomics and surgical technology. My clinical background includes two years as a rural emergency physician and regional EMS coordinator in a resource-constrained region; six years of neurosurgical residency at a high-volume academic center, including two years as chief resident and more than 450 operations across major neurosurgical subspecialties; and subsequent independent rural neurosurgical practice in Turkey.

Over the last several years, I have used AI to analyze clinical and scientific problems and turn them into practical tools and workflows that other people can use. That work now spans clinical AI, experimental science, treatment planning, connectomics and surgical technology, increasingly through global teams working across institutions and specialties. My work has also brought me into broader global health and science communities, including the 2025 Brain Economy Summit during the UN General Assembly.

2 years rural emergency medicine & EMS coordination 6 years neurosurgery residency · 2 as chief resident 450+ neurosurgical operations 2 provisional patent applications
Page 1 · Work and proof of work
Selected work

How the work developed

The same order and narrative as the two-page CV, with the underlying papers, talks, posters and live tools collected beneath each project.

AI extending me as a clinician

During neurosurgical residency I was already building computer-vision models for intracranial hemorrhage on CT. By late 2022, early language models began extending what I could do in clinical research without a dedicated computational team.

One project grew into a reusable quantitative pipeline that offered a new way to examine normal-pressure hydrocephalus. It remains in use as new patients enter the study in Turkey, and global collaborators independently extended both the dataset and the method into new Hydrocephalus Society work, including an award-winning project.

AI had turned clinical insight into reusable research capability that another team could pick up and take further.

Evidence & related work

Clinical AI — evaluating capability and limits

In 2024, I co-authored a Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery study evaluating ChatGPT on brain-tumor diagnosis and treatment planning. I built the API-based system that sent clinical questions to the model and captured its answers for independent assessment by practicing neurosurgeons.

With Randy D’Amico, I later moved from benchmarking performance to a harder question: what happens when AI becomes part of the clinical cognitive system? That became our 2026 Neurosurgery letter, “Artificial Intelligence and the Jagged Frontier of Clinical Reasoning.”

It also led to an invited Neurosurgery review on how AI studies should handle data quality, leakage, validation, interpretability, reproducibility and clinical meaning.

Evidence & related work

BrachyAtlas — specialist planning as an AI-integrated workflow

With A. Gabriella Wernicke and Netanel Ben-Shalom, I built BrachyAtlas to combine anatomy, imaging, implant geometry and radiation dose in one patient-specific intracranial brachytherapy workflow.

It integrates those inputs with an AI agent that helps the clinician work through voluminous connectomic and expected radiation-damage reports, surfacing the anatomy, likely network effects and treatment tradeoffs that matter most for planning.

Evidence & related work

Building new experimental science with AI

During my PhD at the Feinstein Institutes, working with Stavros Zanos and Eric H. Chang, I built a human peripheral-nerve imaging platform with AI as part of the process. Over three years, it grew to span tissue clearing, light-sheet microscopy, molecular anatomy, image analysis and single-fiber reconstruction.

AI also helped overcome physical constraints: I designed and iterated custom holders, access tools and medical-device concepts, then 3D-printed and tested them experimentally. Some concepts became the basis for provisional patent work—bridging ideas, code and physical tools.

The work led to invited presentations at Rockefeller University and the Center for Pain Studies at UT Dallas.

From the same program came the human vagus atlas: we turned thousands of messy anatomical branch observations into a standardized, surgically relevant map, a Brain Stimulation paper, open data and analysis, and an interactive explorer. NIH SPARC invited a dedicated seminar; Kevin Tracey called it “a major advance in the field of vagus nerve science,” noting the question had persisted “ever since the time of Galen.”

AI as a force multiplier for other teams

With Randy D’Amico’s brain-tumor group, I build systems that turn dense patient-specific connectomic data into interpretable phenotypes and longitudinal trajectories.

The Disconnectome Explorer is the quickest to try: place a tumor in a 3D brain and it returns the tracts it would disrupt. What began as analysis code has grown into tools the team can use directly—small analytical capabilities that can be called, combined and reused through increasingly agent-integrated workflows.

Live tools & current work

Neuroplastic surgery — reusable clinical tools

With Netanel Ben-Shalom, we converted visual cranial-deformity judgment into an automated 3D quantitative step. The work was presented orally at CNS and is accepted in Operative Neurosurgery.

The collaboration led to my involvement with the Society for Neuroplastic Surgery and tools its members can use. I built Neuroplastic Anatomy for publication-quality, reusable AI anatomy illustrations; outputs are entering Society educational supplements. We are also developing transcranioplasty-ultrasound workflows through sonolucent implants.

Paper, presentation & tool
Page 2 · Experience and credentials
Experience

The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research / Elmezzi Graduate School

Elmezzi Scholar · PhD Candidate, Bioelectronic Medicine | 2023–present · Manhasset, NY

Human translational neuroscience focused on the vagus nerve and peripheral nervous system, integrating human anatomy, microscopy, molecular biology, computational imaging, software and device development. Work includes NIH-supported human vagus mapping, single-fiber reconstruction, quantitative anatomy, AI-enabled research systems and translational neuromodulation.

Anamur State Hospital, Turkish Ministry of Health

Attending Neurosurgeon | 2023 · Mersin, Turkey

Practiced independently after completion of neurosurgical residency, managing emergency neurosurgical, trauma and acute neurological care in a resource-conscious public hospital.

Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine

Neurosurgery Resident · Chief Resident | 2017–2023 · Ankara, Turkey

Completed comprehensive neurosurgical training at a high-volume academic center with 450+ operations across cranial, tumor, vascular, trauma, spinal and functional neurosurgery. Built and introduced computational imaging, tractography and quantitative research workflows alongside clinical training.

Turkish Ministry of Health — Korkut District Hospital

Rural Emergency Physician · Regional EMS Coordinator | 2015–2017 · Turkey

Delivered frontline emergency care across trauma, neurological, cardiac and general medical emergencies at a district hospital serving an underserved rural province. Managed triage, resuscitation and interhospital transfer over long referral distances; supervised clinical teams and participated in regional emergency-care coordination.

CerebroMap

Founder | 2022–2025

Built computational brain-mapping and neuroimaging tools combining automated MRI analysis, tractography, 3D visualization, cloud workflows and interactive clinical/anatomical interfaces.

Selected publications & work in press
Additional papers, posters, abstracts & talks
2026The Sixth Bioelectronic Medicine Summit: Neurotechnologies for Individuals and Communities. Bioelectronic Medicine.Paper ↗
2025Augmented reality in cranial surgery: head-mounted fiber tractography for brain tumor surgery. Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.Paper ↗
2023Virtual neurosurgery anatomy laboratory: collaborative remote education in the metaverse. Surgical Neurology International.Paper ↗
2022Traumatic subgaleal hematoma in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: rare case report. Surgical Neurology International.Paper ↗
2021Group-level ranking-based hubness analysis of the human brain connectome. Frontiers in Neuroscience.Paper ↗
2020Emergency diagnosis and triage with artificial intelligence in intracranial hemorrhage.Paper ↗
2025A pipeline for building scalable 3D cytoarchitecture models from cleared intact whole human ganglia and peripheral nerve samples. 6th Bioelectronic Medicine Summit.Abstract ↗
2025Investigation of minimally invasive access routes to the human nodose ganglion. 6th Bioelectronic Medicine Summit / Sigma Xi.Poster ↗
2025Automated 3D Measurement and Topographic Representation for Cranioplasty. Congress of Neurological Surgeons, oral presentation.Abstract ↗
2024Single fiber tracking and 3D reconstruction of nerve fiber trajectories from microscopy images of the human vagus nerve. Minnesota Neuromodulation Symposium.Record ↗
2024Knowledge Clouds for Efficient Knowledge Curation: a study on vagus nerve literature. SPARC Meeting.
2024Human Vagus Nerve Fascicle Segmentation Using Micro-CT and 3D UNets. Minnesota Neuromodulation Symposium.Record ↗
2024Fascicular Organization and Fiber Composition of the Human Vagus Nerve at Levels of Branch Emergence. NYC Neuromodulation Conference / Brain Stimulation.Abstract ↗
2024Development of a Fiber Mixing Model. SPARC Meeting.
2022Volumetric Analysis of the Brain in Patients with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. Turkish Neurosurgery Association 35th Scientific Congress.Congress PDF ↗
2022Use of High-Performance Computing Clusters in Neurosurgical Research. Turkish Neurosurgery Association 35th Scientific Congress.Congress PDF ↗
2022The Impact of Connectomics, Metaplasticity, and Meta-Network Concepts on Clinical Decision-Making in Oncologic Surgery. Turkish Neurosurgery Association 35th Scientific Congress.Congress PDF ↗
2026NIH SPARC invited seminar: human vagus nerve atlas.Video ↗
2026Rockefeller University Light Sheet Microscopy Workshop. Invited presentation.
2026Center for Pain Studies, UT Dallas. Invited presentation on human nodose and peripheral-nerve methods.
2026Neuroplastic & Reconstructive Surgery Symposium, Lenox Hill Hospital. Invited presentation.

Where a public poster or proceedings page is available, it is linked directly. Additional poster PDFs can be added here as they are uploaded.

Contact

Clinical judgment, hands-on building, and making new capabilities useful in practice.

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