Awake Brain Surgery

Awake brain surgery is a type of procedure performed while you're awake to treat some brain (neurological) conditions, including some brain tumors or epileptic seizures. If your tumor or seizure center (epilepsy focus) is near the parts of your brain that control movement or speech, you may be awake during surgery to respond to your surgeon. Your responses help your surgeon ensure that he or she treats the precise area of your brain needing surgery. In addition, the procedure lowers the risk of damage to functional areas of your brain. 

Awake brain surgery offers many advantages. People who have brain tumors or seizure centers (epileptic foci) near the functional brain tissue, whose conditions previously would have been considered inoperable, may have the option of awake brain surgery. Awake brain surgery may reduce the size of spreading brain tumors and it may prolong your life and improve your quality of life. As with any brain surgery, awake brain surgery has the potential for risks and complications including bleeding, infection, brain damage or death.

Mayo Clinic uses computer-assisted brain surgery and intraoperative MRI during awake brain surgery. Mayo Clinic explains how 28-year-old Mary Meixner went through "awake surgery" during which surgeons used an intraoperative MRI to target her brain tumor.

At the end of the operation, she slept. Then, she says, "I woke up and I was so excited, and I was like, yes! I'm not dead! I can talk! I can think! Because you never know, right?"

Transcript here.