Meet Our Team

Michael Muhonen

Dr. Michael Muhonen joined the company in 2024 and brings with him over 30 years of neurological, neurosurgical, and research expertise. An internationally recognized expert in neurosurgery, Dr. Muhonen has published more than 30 original manuscripts and book chapters and has made more than 200 national and international presentations on various pediatric neurosurgical topics. He has co-authored chapters in textbooks on Neurosurgical of Pregnancy, Neurosurgery and Surgery of the Developing Nervous System, and Emergent Surgical Treatment of Acute Hydrocephalus. His recent work focuses on the cerebral spinal fluid spaces of the brain and spinal canal, spinal fluid circulation mechanisms,
surgical access to the central nervous system for gene and metabolic therapies, and novel therapies for the treatment of hydrocephalus.

Dedicated to clinical excellence, Dr. Muhonen is board certified in neurological surgery and pediatric neurological surgery. He completed his neurosurgical residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in 1993, after attending medical school at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. He served as an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Iowa Hospitals from 1993-1995 and is currently a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), and a clinical associate professor at University of California Irvine Medical
Center. Dr. Muhonen was the head of neurosurgery at CHOC from 1995- 2020, developing the neurosurgical program into one recognized
nationally by US News and World Report Hospital rankings of Neurology/Neurosurgery. He is currently a research-oriented pediatric neurosurgeon (clinical and bench research), as the director of the CHOC hydrocephalus research laboratory in the Neuroscience Institute. In four years, he has received over $5 million in NIH, DOD, and grateful family funding to run his research team of eight physicians, scientists, and engineers. Dr. Muhonen has been an investigator in multiple clinical trials, including the clinical trials of Medtronic’s Strata Valve, a medical device used to treat hydrocephalus. He led the CHOC research effort on the intrathecal baclofen pump for treatment of spasticity and dystonia of cerebral origin. Dr. Muhonen has served as a medical advisor for the Hydrocephalus Foundation (Medical Director), Hydrocephalus Association (Board Member), Codman, Medtronic, Blue Rock Therapeutics, Anuncia, Alcyone, Biogen, and Kitea Health.  He has been recognized as one of the Best Doctors in Orange County, California, specialty of Neurological Surgery as determined by Orange Coast Magazine for over 20 years. Dr. Muhonen enjoys understanding how devices and gadgets work, as evidenced by his work bench, covered with disassembled and experimental neurosurgical and brain access devices. Outside of medicine, he enjoys golf, fly fishing, and hiking, having recently walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain.