Preventing position-related brachial plexus injury with intraoperative somatosensory evoked potentials and transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials during anterior cervical spine surgery.

The use of somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) to monitor upper extremity nerves during surgery is becoming more accepted as a valid and useful technique to minimize intraoperative nerve injuries. We present a case illustrating the benefit of utilizing both SSEPs and transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials (TCeMEPs) for preventing position-related injury during surgery. The patient was a 43-year-old male with a history of neck pain, along with numbness and tingling of the upper extremities.

Limiting the current density during localization of the primary motor cortex by using a tangential-radial cortical somatosensory evoked potentials model, direct electrical cortical stimulation, and electrocorticography.

Background: Traditionally, the dual-radial model, which requires high cortical stimulation intensities and may evoke intraoperative seizures, is used for mapping during resection of lesions within or near the central sulcus.

Objective: To examine the potential utility of using the multimodal tangential-radial triphasic model, which may increase the accuracy and reliability of cortical mapping at lower stimulation intensities.

Methods: We performed a retrospective review of intracranial neuromonitoring cases at the University of Virginia.

Protecting the genitofemoral nerve during direct/extreme lateral interbody fusion (DLIF/XLIF) procedures.

A 77-year-old male presented with a history of severe lower back pain for 10 years with radiculopathy, positive claudication type symptoms in his calf with walking, and severe "burning" in his legs bilaterally with walking. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed lumbar stenosis at the L3-L4 and L4-L5 levels. During the direct or extreme lateral interbody fusion (DLIF/XLIF) procedure, bilateral posterior tibial, femoral, and ulnar nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) were recorded with good morphology of waveforms observed.

Sawtooth wave density analysis during REM sleep in temporal lobe epilepsy patients.

Background And Purpose: This study analyzes sawtooth waves (STW), a characteristic feature of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in temporal lobe epilepsy patients in order to test the hypothesis of STW dysfunction in this population.

Methods: Polysomnographic records from 16 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and 11 controls were scored for density (STW/h of REM sleep), duration (STW duration in s), and frequency of STW (waves/second within each STW complex). These measures were compared between both groups.

Fingertip skin conformance accounts, in part, for differences in tactile spatial acuity in young subjects, but not for the decline in spatial acuity with aging.

The ability of the skin to conform to the spatial details of a surface or an object is an essential part of our ability to discriminate fine spatial features haptically. In this study, we examined the extent to which differences in tactual acuity between subjects of the same age and between younger and older subjects can be accounted for by differences in the properties of the skin. We did so by measuring skin conformance and tactile spatial acuity in the glabrous skin at the fingertip in 18 younger (19-36 years old) and 9 older (61-69 years old) subjects.