Topographic Mapping of the Primary Sensory Cortex Using Intraoperative Optical Imaging and Tactile Irritation

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The determination of exact tumor boundaries within eloquent brain regions is essential to maximize the extent of resection. Recent studies showed that intraoperative optical imaging (IOI) combined with median nerve stimulation is a helpful tool for visualization of the primary sensory cortex (PSC). In this technical note, we describe a novel approach of using IOI with painless tactile irritation to demonstrate the feasibility of topographic mapping of different body regions within the PSC. In addition, we compared the IOI results with preoperative functional MRI (fMRI) findings. In five patients with tumors located near the PSC who received tumor removal, IOI with tactile irritation of different body parts and fMRI was applied. We showed that tactile irritation of the hand in local and general anesthesia leads to reliable changes of cerebral blood volume during IOI. Hereby, we observed comparable IOI activation maps regarding the median nerve stimulation, fMRI and tactile irritation of the hand. The tactile irritation of different body areas revealed a plausible topographic distribution along the PSC. With this approach, IOI is also suitable for awake surgeries, since the tactile irritation is painless compared with median nerve stimulation and is congruent to fMRI findings. Further studies are ongoing to standardize this method to enable a broad application within the neurosurgical community.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalBrain topography
Volume36
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 36446998
ORCID /0000-0003-0554-2178/work/142249898
ORCID /0000-0002-3776-3453/work/142251907
ORCID /0000-0002-4897-1119/work/145224684
ORCID /0000-0002-6603-5375/work/148606641
ORCID /0000-0002-7625-343X/work/150881403

Keywords

Keywords

  • Functional MRI, Intraoperative optical imaging, Sensory irritation, Glioma/surgery, Brain, Brain Mapping/methods, Humans, Brain Neoplasms/surgery, Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods, Cerebral Cortex