It’s not brain surgery—but it’s close
As intimidating as the name may sound, you don’t need to be a neurosurgeon to understand intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM). You just need to have played the game “Operation.”
If you’re familiar with the art of extracting tiny foreign bodies from the small, sensor-lined cavities of the board game, you’re more or less familiar with IONM. The difference is the stakes.
IONM involves working with a surgical team to ensure that a patient retains nerve function before, during, and after a surgery. Nerves transmit electrical signals from the brain and spinal cord all throughout the body, playing a role in virtually all bodily functions, so minimizing nerve damage during operations is imperative.
“If a surgeon is working around the spinal cord and its nerve roots, we are helping the surgeon avoid injuring any of these structures by providing live, real-time feedback through neural signals we record,” explains Dr. Payam Andalib, clinical director and faculty at UConn’s IONM program. “If the surgeon gets too close to a nerve root and there is an irritation of that nerve, we are going to observe that as part of our monitoring and alert them so they can take appropriate action.”