Rate My Professor Dirk De Ridder

Professor Dirk De Ridder is the Neurological Foundation Professor of Neurosurgery in the Department of Surgical Sciences, Dunedin School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where he established and heads the country's first academic neurosurgery unit. He splits his time between Otago for research and teaching and clinical neurosurgery at Dunedin Hospital, and Belgium where he runs a non-invasive neuromodulation clinic. De Ridder obtained his MD from the University of Ghent in 1992, completed neurosurgery residency in Belgium and South Africa from 1992 to 1998, and earned a PhD from the University of Antwerp in 2005 on a Darwinian neurosurgical approach to tinnitus. His career includes roles as neurosurgeon at St. Lucas Hospital, Ghent (1998-1999), and University Hospital Antwerp (2000-2012), serving as acting head of neurosurgery there (2006-2007). In 2008, he founded the BRAI⁲N brain research center Antwerp for Innovative and Interdisciplinary Neuromodulation and the TRI Tinnitus Research Initiative Clinic.

De Ridder's research centers on neuromodulation techniques to treat phantom perceptions and brain disorders such as tinnitus, chronic pain, depression, Parkinson's disease, addiction, and thalamocortical dysrhythmias, applying network neuroscience and reward system modulation. Notable innovations include transcranial magnetic stimulation for tinnitus, vagus nerve stimulation paired with tones, and the BurstDR stimulation for spinal cord and brain implants, developed over six years and licensed to Abbott in 2019, now integrated into their devices generating approximately US$781 million annually. He has authored over 300 scientific articles, including highly cited papers like 'Tinnitus: causes and clinical management' (The Lancet Neurology, 2013), 'Phantom percepts: tinnitus and pain as persisting aversive memory networks' (PNAS, 2011), and 'Evidence-based guidelines on the therapeutic use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)' (Clinical Neurophysiology, 2014); co-edited the Textbook of Tinnitus (Springer, 2011); holds more than 30 patents; and collaborates with over 40 international groups. His contributions include hundreds of invited lectures worldwide, editorial roles for journals such as Neuromodulation and World Neurosurgery, and the Dean’s Medal of Excellence from the University of Otago in 2019.