Open-Access Webinars, Videos, and Databases for Neurosurgery

Introduction

This chapter compiles a selection of high-quality, open-access resources for neurosurgeons, trainees, and researchers, bringing together educational webinars, anatomical databases, specialized software, and practical tutorials. Featured materials include webinar archives, high-resolution brain atlases, advanced imaging analysis tools, and step-by-step guides for segmentation and 3D modeling. This section reflects the foundation of our platform’s mission—to provide accessible, high-value resources that support neurosurgeons worldwide in education, research, and clinical excellence. This will be a continuously evolving database, with additional resources relevant to the field of neurosurgery to be added in the future.

Neurosurgery Recorded Webinars

1. EANS webinars
https://www.eans.org/page/EANSPastWebinars - The EANS Past Webinars page offers access to recorded educational sessions hosted by the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, covering a wide range of neurosurgical topics and subspecialties. These webinars provide expert-led insights, case discussions, and updates on current research for professional development in neurosurgery.

2. AANS videos and webinars
 https://www.youtube.com/@AANSNeurosurgery/featured - The AANS Neurosurgery YouTube channel features educational playlists from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, including lectures, surgical demonstrations, webinars, interviews with prominent neurosurgeons, and historical overviews of the specialty.

3. ACNS webinars
https://www.youtube.com/@Acnswebinars/videos - The ACNS Webinars YouTube channel hosts recorded online lectures organized by the Asian Congress of Neurological Surgeons, featuring expert presentations on diverse neurosurgical topics. The videos cover surgical techniques, case discussions, and advances in research, serving as a free educational resource for the global neurosurgical community.

4. Seattle Science foundation
https://www.youtube.com/@seattlesciencefoundation6700 - The Seattle Science Foundation YouTube channel features a wide range of medical and neurosurgical educational content, including live-streamed surgeries, lectures, and anatomy demonstrations.

5. Stanford Rhoton Society meetings
https://www.youtube.com/@stanfordneurosurgery6814 - The Stanford Rhoton Society YouTube channel contains educational meetings and lectures dedicated to neurosurgical anatomy and technique, inspired by the legacy of Dr. Albert Rhoton. The content features expert presentations, case-based discussions, and high-resolution anatomical demonstrations.

6. NREF webinars
 https://www.youtube.com/@NREFvideos The NREF YouTube channel hosts educational webinars and videos from the Neurosurgery Research & Education Foundation, covering a broad spectrum of neurosurgical topics.

7. Hernesniemi´s 1001 and more microneurosurgical videos
https://surgicalneurologyint.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1001-e-book-1.pdf Hernesniemi’s 1001 and More Microneurosurgical Videos is a freely accessible e-book compiling over a thousand operative videos by Professor Juha Hernesniemi, illustrating a vast range of microneurosurgical procedures. It serves as a comprehensive visual library for neurosurgeons, offering step-by-step surgical demonstrations and insights from decades of clinical experience.

8. Surgical Neurology International lectures
https://surgicalneurologyint.com/category/videos/ucla-100-lectures/ - The Surgical Neurology International “UCLA 100 Lectures” series is a free online collection of recorded neurosurgical lectures covering fundamental and advanced topics in the field.

9. ISPN Library
https://ispnlibrary.org/ - The ISPN Library, developed by the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery (ISPN), is a comprehensive digital platform dedicated to advancing education in pediatric neurosurgery. It brings together an extensive collection of lectures, operative videos, meeting recordings, case studies, and journal resources, freely accessible to registered users worldwide. Designed as an evolving global reference hub, the library organizes its content by neurosurgical subspecialties — including hydrocephalus and endoscopy, tumor surgery, spinal malformations, and functional and epilepsy surgery offering structured knowledge from anatomy to operative management.

Databases

1. Jülich Brain Atlas
 https://julich-brain-atlas.de/ - The Jülich Brain Atlas is an interactive, high-resolution, three-dimensional atlas of the human brain that integrates cytoarchitectonic maps with MRI data, enabling precise navigation through cortical and subcortical regions. It provides researchers with detailed structural, functional, and connectivity information, accessible via an intuitive online interface for neuroanatomical exploration.   

2. DSI studio
https://dsi-studio.labsolver.org/  DSI Studio is a free, open-access diffusion MRI analysis software for reconstructing, visualizing, and quantifying white matter pathways in the human brain. It supports multiple diffusion imaging models, tractography methods, and connectome analyses, providing a versatile platform for research and clinical neuroimaging.

3. The extended Human Connectome Project multimodal parcellation atlas of the human cortex and subcortical areas
https://github.com/wayalan/HCPex The Extended Human Connectome Project (HCPex) atlas is a freely available neuroimaging dataset that expands the original HCP multimodal parcellation by including both cortical and subcortical regions. It provides high-resolution, standardized brain maps for advanced structural and functional connectivity analyses.

4.  Radiopedia
https://radiopaedia.org/articles/brain-arterial-vascular-territories  Radiopaedia is a free, open-access radiology resource offering collaboratively written, peer-reviewed articles and cases for medical education. Its page on brain arterial vascular territories provides detailed anatomical descriptions, diagrams, and imaging examples of cerebral blood supply regions.

5. NeuroAngio
https://neuroangio.org/ -  Neuroangio.org is a free, open-access educational resource focused on neurovascular anatomy and pathology, particularly from an interventional neuroradiology perspective. It offers detailed explanations, high-quality angiographic images, and practical insights into cerebral and spinal vascular anatomy and disease.

6. BodyParts3D / Anatomography
https://lifesciencedb.jp/bp3d/ - BodyParts3D / Anatomography – An open-access, high-resolution 3D anatomical dataset developed by the Database Center for Life Science (DBCLS), Japan. It provides detailed, segmented human anatomical models derived from clinical CT data, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.1 Japan license (CC BY-SA 2.1 JP), and is freely available for educational and research use.
 
7. BrainSpan Atlas 
https://www.brainspan.org/static/atlas - BrainSpan Atlas – Anatomical Reference Atlas of the Developing and Adult Human Brain – A high-resolution anatomical atlas documenting the structural organization of the human brain across key developmental stages, from early prenatal life to adulthood. Developed by the Allen Institute for Brain Science and partners, the atlas provides expertly segmented and annotated histological sections of both developing and mature human brains. It serves as a valuable open-access resource for neuroanatomical education, comparative brain development studies, and structural reference in neuroscience research.
 
8. Allen Human Brain Atlas
https://atlas.brain-map.org - Allen Human Brain Atlas – A comprehensive open-access anatomical and transcriptomic atlas of the adult human brain, developed by the Allen Institute for Brain Science. The resource integrates high-resolution structural MRI, histological data, and 3D reconstructions with detailed anatomical annotations across multiple adult donor brains. It serves as a foundational reference for human brain mapping, neuroanatomical education, and research in brain structure-function relationships.
 
9. 3D Emboyoatlas
https://www.3dembryoatlas.com/blank - A digital atlas presenting high-resolution, three-dimensional reconstructions of human embryos at Carnegie stages 13 to 23. Developed to support embryological education and research, the atlas provides interactive visualizations of embryonic structures derived from histological sections and advanced 3D imaging techniques. It is a valuable open-access resource for studying early human development and anatomical morphogenesis.
 
10. UNSW Embryology – Carnegie Stages
https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Carnegie_Stages - UNSW Embryology – Carnegie Stages – An open-access academic resource developed by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), providing comprehensive descriptions of the 23 standardized Carnegie stages of human embryonic development. The platform includes annotated histological images, developmental timelines, anatomical descriptions, and comparative data to support education in human embryology and developmental biology.
 
11. Brainlife.io
https://brainlife.io/about/ - Brainlife.io – A cloud-based, open science platform designed to support reproducible neuroscience research through large-scale processing, sharing, and visualization of neuroimaging data. Brainlife enables users to run advanced pipelines (including diffusion MRI, fMRI, and connectomics), access curated datasets, and publish fully documented workflows. It integrates with platforms like BIDS and supports collaborative, open-access projects in computational neuroanatomy and neuroinformatics.

12. The Visible Human Project
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/media.html 
The Visible Human Project – National Library of Medicine. The Visible Human Project®, developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, represents one of the pioneering efforts in digital anatomy. This open-access collection presents a series of multimedia visualizations and interactive demonstrations that explore the male and female human bodies in unprecedented anatomical detail. Hosted by the National Library of Medicine, the media archive serves as an educational resource and a historical record of the evolution of computational anatomy and 3D medical visualization.

Software

1. Blender software 
 https://www.blender.org/ - Blender is a free, open-source 3D creation suite that supports the entire production pipeline, including modeling, sculpting, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, and video editing. In the context of the online neurosurgical atlas project, Blender is used to process, edit, and optimize high-resolution anatomical models, refine photogrammetry scans, and create precise neuroanatomical 3D models

2. 3D Slicer
https://www.slicer.org/ - 3D Slicer is a free, open-source software platform for medical image analysis, visualization, and 3D reconstruction. It supports tasks such as segmentation, registration, quantitative analysis, and model export, making it widely used in research, clinical studies, and educational applications. In our project, 3D Slicer is used to segment and reconstruct high-resolution neuroanatomical structures from DICOM data and transforming them to 3D models

3. Horos DICOM viewer
https://horosproject.org/ - Horos is a free, open-source medical image viewer for macOS, designed for viewing, organizing, and analyzing DICOM datasets. 

4. RadiAnt
https://www.radiantviewer.com – RadiAnt is a fast, lightweight DICOM viewer for Windows, offering advanced tools like MPR, 3D volume rendering, and PET-CT fusion. Designed for clinical review and teaching, it supports PACS integration and handles large datasets.

DICOM Segmentation and 3D Modeling Tutorials

1. 3D Slicer segmentation tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTEti9aY0vs&list=PLeaIM0zUlEqswa6Pskg9uMq15LiWWYP39   This YouTube tutorial series demonstrates how to use 3D Slicer, a free, open-source platform for medical image analysis and visualization. It provides step-by-step guidance on loading, segmenting, and reconstructing anatomical structures from imaging data for research and educational purposes.
 
2. Blender 3D modeling tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0J27sf9N1Y&list=PLjEaoINr3zgEPv5y--4MKpciLaoQYZB1Z - this YouTube playlist is a Blender tutorial series introducing the fundamentals of the free, open-source 3D creation suite. It covers essential skills such as navigation, modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering for beginners.