The summary in the link posted in a comment by Judy (see previous post) is a nice overview of a temporal lobectomy. Major difference being that the patient isn’t intubated because they need to be able to talk in the middle of surgery. Yup. That’s right.

Patient is put to sleep, head shaved, skin and muscle at temple folded back, 4×4 inch square of skull sawed out. Electrodes placed on brain, anesthetic is lightened, patient begins to wake up. Patient becomes lucid enough to begin language testing. Patient is asked to name objects and count aloud while the electrodes are stimulated and changes in language or facial grimacing are carefully observed so as to locate language areas (this is the left temporal lobe, folks) and to make sure levels are sensitive. So, I don’t know how that do things at Stanford (link cited by Judy), but most patients aren’t intubated or they wouldn’t be able to complete these exercises. Patient is put back to sleep, and the surgeons start sucking out pieces of brain.

It’s a surprisingly inelegant process–no careful microscopic cuts, and plenty of pushing and pulling. And a surprisingly mundane experience. The neurosurgeons cut people’s heads open every day without fuss or ceremony.

It’s funny to think there really is a throbbing brain walking around in all of our heads. (That’s right–throbbing. Your brain uses up massive amounts of oxygen, and requires huge amounts of blood flow. Your blood pulses at your wrist and neck, and pulses visibly in your brain). And funny to think most of us will go through decades of life without ever actually seeing with our own eyes the very organ which makes us human, makes us who we are. For being a functioning, highly complex integration of neurons with no tendency to engage in epileptiform activity, I salute my brain.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.