HC 7 Flashcards
What is the difficult part in brain operation?
Decision making. When operating, there is the question how to do it, regarding many factors such as the tissue, nerves, patient, etc.
How do we get a brain imagine with only using x-ray?
There are two ways. Pneumography and cerebral angiography.
What is pneumography?
Replace csf with air which spreads through the ventricles. This can be seen in the x-ray.
What is cerebral angiography?
Puncture a hole and use contrast dye that causes blood vessels such as arteries to appear on the x-ray.
What is a CT?
Computer tomography. It is the first method to indirectly visualize the brain.
What is the difference between beneign and malignant brain tumors?
Beneign brain tumors goes away and there are clear borders, indicating where it starts and ends.
Malignant brain tumors grows in tissue and there is no border.
What should we balance when operating on brain tumors?
We should try to balance to remove as much malignant tumors as possible, but the more we remove, the more chance there is you remove healthy tissue as well. This impacts the quality of life, which we try to keep as high as possible.
What are lesion-deficit-studies?
These are one of the earliest studies done. If a deficit follows a lesion, then it can be located.
Otherwise, assumption leads to phrenology. Modern phrenology is called localisation.
How is electrical stimulation of the brain done?
Before surgeons remove any brain tissue, they use awake mapping, which means monitoring the brain while asking the patient to perform certain tasks. The clinical ‘Gold Standard’ is: document where we find a response.
What is a new non-invasive localisation techniques?
Diffusion imaging. It follows a tractography. If there is damage, is there a deficit? We can look into the literature for the answer. The information found from literature needs to be discussed with the patient prior to the surgery. This helps the decision making before and during surgery. Navigational images are used during surgery.
What is DBS?
Deep brain stimulation. In the context of deep brain stimulation (DBS), “modulating” refers to altering or adjusting the activity of neurons in specific brain regions to achieve a desired effect.
