Cooling Technique Protects Speech During Brain Surgery

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According to a study conducted by researchers from NYU Langone Medical Ceter and the University of Iowa, a new cooling technique can be used to protect the brain’s speech centers during surgery while also pinpointing the areas separately that house word formation and speech timing. During the operations, patients were put under local anesthesia, allowing for them to be awake during the procedures. Some of these procedures were to remove tumors. Because they were awake, surgeons were able to map their brain functions, including speaking ability, to specific brain areas. Once researchers were able to map all 43 distinct brain sites, the patients then received general anesthesia for the rest of their procedure. “This study confirms that cooling is a safe and effective means of protecting important brain centers during neurosurgery,” says study lead investigator Michael Long, PhD, an assistant professor in the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone. Click here to read more. 

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