D. Papo
Physics of Life Reviews, 21:42-45 (2017).
Often, viz. in tumour removal procedures, neurosurgeons operate on a sedated but awake patient to precisely locate functional brain areas that must be avoided. To do so, brain regions are electrically stimulated while the patient performs tasks such as talking, counting or looking at pictures. The patient’s responses are then used to create a map of the functional areas of the brain and remove as much of the tumour as possible. In so doing, neurosurgeons parse the Euclidean space of brain anatomy to navigate into the space of cognitive function. However the map between these two spaces is not smooth, and the topology induced by local electrical stimulation non-trivial. So, how should stimulation be carried out, i.e. on what space should it act to render the application smooth and the resulting topology “tractable”?
David Papo 