Why do they call him the neurosurgeon of emotions?
Last year I removed a brain tumor from Yolanda, operated on her awake and for the first time applied my test.
That is?
With the help of artificial intelligence, we have created a wide range of images of facial expressions of feelings that the patient recognizes and names while being operated on.
For what purpose?
By applying a direct and painless electrical stimulus to Yolanda’s brain for a few seconds, we were able to ask her mind if that area was critical or not thanks to the recognition of the emotions on the faces of our test.
With?
The stimulator interrupts the different brain circuits, when you apply it and the patient stops recognizing emotions or makes mistakes, it means that the region is critical.
How was this concern born?
I’m a composer, conveying emotion comes naturally to me. But the trigger was when my uncle, a musician, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2013, I was a fourth-year medical student.
Everything went fine?
After the surgery he moved and spoke perfectly, but lost all emotional processing, from the ability to be moved by a hug to feeling pleasure listening to Shostakovich’s Fifth.
An essential loss.
From there I started researching to avoid that type of sequelae and I found Professor Duffau, a world leader in brain surgery on awake patients and cognitive mapping, the place to go.
What is cognitive mapping?
The map of areas of the brain that are highly plastic and therefore can be removed. Neurosurgery can finally go a little further than preserving language and movement, which is what it has focused on so far.
How did it feel the first time?
I was full of conflicting feelings, I couldn’t get my uncle out of my head. The percentage of patients with brain tumors who are left with deficits in personality, behavior or the way they see the world after surgery is very high.
You try to change it.
To see that Yolanda, who had a huge brain tumor that was involving very critical areas such as the cingulum, is now leading a normal life is wonderful.
He has succeeded.
We have shown that the brain is tremendously plastic and that when there is a lesion that grows little by little it is able to redistribute brain functions away from the tumor. This allows us to be able to remove areas that were previously thought to be untouchable.
It operates worldwide.
My team and I have left the certainty of working in a hospital. We go where they ask us, we don’t charge patients, we live off the training we give.
Are you an oenagé with legs?
Yes, and it makes me happy. Science advances by toppling previous paradigms or beliefs, and the best way to carry that message is to help people without asking for anything in return.
And what do you get?
The most genuine emotion: giving the illusion of life back to another person, going from telling them your tumor is inoperable or you will be left with many sequelae, to we will fight to give you back a normal life. It’s the only emotion I’m addicted to.
Are patients still put to sleep for brain surgery?
In most cases. And the left hemisphere is usually operated on, because we tend to localize brain functions such as language and movement in one point, but this is a reductionist view.
A reductionist view of the brain?
Yes, the brain is a complex, self-organizing system that constantly adapts to its environment. We operated on a man in Poland with a tumor that no one dared to touch because it was in the insula, a part of the brain with a lot of functionality.
I?
Gradually, in the face of a growing tumor, the brain shifts the function of the insula to another place, so we were able to clear it without damaging the quality of life according to the plastic zone map of Duffau.
As a neuroscientist he has researched music and the brain…
We studied how the brain reacts to different styles of music – just music –, which parts of the brain recruit oxygen to activate. The most primitive part of movement, pleasure and reward was activated with the rhythm of reggaeton.
Do you have a relationship with any patients?
with all They all have my cell phone. This is how we conceive of the practice of medicine.
