The preoperative and 24h-postoperative T1 post-contrast sequence MRI, and the planned entry point and trajectory of a left thalamic glioma are shown. The safest trajectory has to be chosen by considering eloquent areas, vascular structures, sulci, and possible heat transfer modifiers. Choosing one that avoids entering sulci is critical to prevent complications. Total volumetric ablation can be achieved for adult basal ganglia gliomas without adding significant risk compared to a biopsy. Read more in “Newly Diagnosed Adult Basal Ganglia Gliomas Treated with Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy: A Comparative Cohort With Needle Biopsy.”

The illustration on this month’s cover shows a single-position corpectomy and instrumentation in the lateral decubitus for a burst fracture. The drawing was made by Franco De Cicco, MD. Read more in “Single Position Transpsoas Corpectomy and Posterior Instrumentation in the Thoracolumbar Spine for Different Clinical Scenarios”.

This month’s cover illustration depicts a novel dural closure technique in the posterior fossa using reinforcing graft materials for Chiari decompression. A sutured graft of Alloderm is buttressed from below by an underlayment of Duragen collagen matrix. In “Dual Dural Patch Graft with AlloDerm and DuraGen Underlay for Duraplasty in Chiari Malformation Results in Significantly Decreased Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak Complications,” Hamrick et al report that with this double graft technique the incidence of postoperative CSF complications was significantly reduced, with elimination of percutaneous CSF leakage and reduction of pseudomeningocoeles.

The “neurosurgical universe” is imagined using a network of published terms across neurosurgery journals from 2019 to 2022, which we colored by subspecialty areas. The connectivity between topics and the relative volume of published work on a topic is depicted by word size.