SHERWOOD - CHI St. Vincent marked a milestone in the expansion of its Arkansas Neuroscience Institute today with the formal groundbreaking for a $17 million education and research center at CHI St. Vincent North in Sherwood.

The new education and research building at CHI St. Vincent North near Little Rock will be part of a destination neurosciences institute that provides advanced neurosurgery care to patients in Arkansas, in the United States and internationally. The Arkansas Neuroscience Institute, currently located a few miles away at CHI St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock, will relocate its surgical and clinical operations to the newly expanded center in Sherwood by the end of this year. The education and research center will open its doors in early 2019.

The Arkansas Neuroscience Institute is known for its internationally-recognized neurosurgeons who perform more than 1,000 complex surgeries a year and serve as mentors to clinicians seeking to learn the most advanced, sophisticated techniques for treating neurological disorders said CHI St. Vincent CEO Chad Aduddell.

The education and research center will be adjacent to the hospital on the CHI St. Vincent North campus. It will feature an expanded laboratory and classrooms, an auditorium, the Arkansas Neuroscience Institute clinic and office space for the institute and for other physicians. The laboratory will be the only one of its kind in the world, featuring a patented teaching model developed by Dr. Emad Aboud, director of the lab.

Denver-based NexCore Group is the developer for the project and will oversee construction.

Work is already underway to renovate part of CHI St. Vincent North to house the Institute. Among those renovations are the addition of 10 intensive care unit rooms, updated operating rooms, an angiography suite, a new pharmacy and advanced imaging technology including a 128-slice CT scanner and 3T MRI equipment.

The Arkansas Neuroscience Institute is led by Dr. Ali Krisht, a renowned neurosurgeon who specializes in vascular microsurgery involving the treatment of aneurysms, arterio-venous malformations, cavernous sinus tumors and acute treatment of stroke. Krisht is the chief editor of the journal, Contemporary Neurosurgery.

Patients from 38 states and from all 75 counties in Arkansas have been treated at the Arkansas Neuroscience Institute. The institute is a comprehensive program that incorporates all aspects of neurosurgery and a full spectrum of neurological disorders.