Hendra virus (HeV) is an RNA virus from the genus Henipavirus that causes acute respiratory illness and encephalitis in animals and humans. With a mortality rate between 40-70%, HeV outbreaks within Australia have caused fatalities in three of five infected humans and euthanasia of numerous horses since the mid-1990’s (Field 2001). Due to the lack of treatment strategies, the threat of HeV outbreaks continues to pose a high risk to Australians. For this reason, it is important to understand the basic biology of the virus in order to develop rational treatment strategies to prevent and manage future HeV outbreaks. Of particular interest is the mechanism by which HeV infects neurons within the central nervous system (CNS). Interestingly, a recent study by Dups et al. (2012), reported that despite the presence of encephalitis, viral antigen and recovery of substantial viral genome, HeV could not be isolated from the brains mice. Here we investigate the hypothesis that trans-neuronal spread of the virus occurs though a cell contact dependent processes. Using immuno-labelling with confocal and super resolution fluorescence microscopy we investigate the assembly of key viral proteins into infectious viral particles. Intriguingly, several key proteins involved in viral budding and fusion do not appear to co-localise with virion-like particles in infected cells. Further examination of infected neurons via electron microscopy reveals the presence of novel spike-like processes containing viral ribo-nuclear protein (RNP) structures. In addition, neighboring neurons appear to recognise these processes and upon contact, form membrane invaginations which engulf the RNP-containing spikes. These observations suggest that a novel mechanism of contact-dependent viral pathogenesis may occur between infected neurons. This study forms the foundation for further research towards identifying viral processes involved in virus transmission, which could be targeted for the development of therapeutic intervention for this deadly zoonotic disease.