Byron Gregory Thompson, MD

Dr. B. Gregory Thompson was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the oldest son in a family of eleven children. Dr. Thompson attended Harvard College, where he played football and studied English and biology. He graduated from the University of Kansas School of Medicine and subsequently entered neurosurgery residency training at the University of Pittsburgh, where he did elective rotations in neurology at Queen Square in London, England, and as a Medical Staff Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Following his residency in Pittsburgh, Dr. Thompson did a neurovascular and skull base surgery fellowship at the Barrow Neurological Institute and began his academic career at the University of Utah. He was then recruited to the University of Michigan.

After 10 years in practice, Dr. Thompson recognized that the rapid technological and clinical development of interventional neuroradiology was a force rapidly changing cerebrovascular surgery and training, and so he returned to training as a fellow in Endovascular Neurological Surgery (ENS) at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Upon returning full time to the University of Michigan in 2005, he became Vice Chairman of the Neurosurgery Department and established a curriculum for neurosurgery resident education in ENS. He also subsequently established a “dual training” cerebrovascular fellowship which encompasses both endovascular and advanced microsurgical techniques.

Working also with a cranial base team of six otologists at Michigan, Dr Thompson has operated more than 1,000 patients with vestibular schwannomas, and their Michigan team has reported significantly improved hearing preservation results with the Middle Fossa Approach.

Dr. Thompson received the University of Michigan’s Medical Student Award for Teaching Excellence in Neuroscience, the University’s Outstanding Clinician Award, and was an inaugural member of the University’s League of Clinical Excellence. He was honored with the Cerebrovascular Section’s Alfred J. Luessenhop Award in Cerebrovascular Surgery in 2011, and was appointed as a Director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery in 2012. He currently serves as the Chair of the ABNS. Dr. Thompson and his wife Ramona have 7 children and reside in Ann Arbor.

Brain aneurysms, acoustic neuromas (vestibular schwannomas), neurofibromatosis (NF1 and NF2), meningiomas, cerebrovascular disorders, cranial base disorders, AVMs, cavernous malformations, carotid artery disease, radiosurgery

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

During one of his residency elective rotations at the National Institutes of Health in Baltimore, Dr. Thompson led the research team which defined Nitric Oxide as the endovascular mediator of chemoregulation of cerebral blood flow, and for this work he received the Robert G. Siekert Young Investigator Award in Stroke from the American Heart Association. Dr. Thompson also received the Garber Galbraith Cerebrovascular Research Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons for his investigation of the role of the Nitric Oxide in the pathogenesis of Cerebral Vasospasm after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in Primates.