[jac241]

You electrically stimulate around the spot with a probe where you’re planning to resect. If the patient can’t perform whatever task you’re evaluating then you know you can’t resect in that area. Generally looking for a 1cm margin between tissue you’re going to resect and a positive stim site.

Can’t undo brain cuts. CNS neurons don’t repair themselves like peripheral neurons or your skin. Generally not cutting glioma brain tumors out per se more likely to use ultrasonic aspiration to suck the tumor out piecemeal. Depends on the tumor though.

[SeanAnderson]

Oh, that makes sense. Cool that we can "dry run" explore with electric pulses! Thanks for explaining :)

[infogulch]

"dry run" is a great analogy!

[ayewo]

You seem knowledgeable about the topic.

I'm also curious as to the answer to this question [1]. Why does left-handedness make brain surgery slightly more complicated?

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33215614

[amelius]

How do you know what task to evaluate?

And what if this was not a saxophone player, but a tennis player? Or both?

[Firmwarrior]

The worst is when you're performing brain surgery on a brain surgeon. The operating theater can get really crowded.

[rurban]

With our brain surgery robot the brain surgeon can definitely perform brain surgery on himself. Or invite a fellow brain surgeon over the phone, well a tablet might work better. Or better VR 3d glasses.

[cfu28]

Operating theater overflow :)

[guynamedloren]

Okay, this was a good one!

[elteto]

Fascinating! What is ultrasonic aspiration and how does it work?