Brain surgery

During an awake craniotomy, you receive anesthetic on your head, so you don’t feel pain from the incision. You also receive sedation to put you into a light sleep. But your surgeon and anesthesiologist wake you up during the surgery and ask you to perform tasks. You may need to speak, move a body part, look at objects or remember information. Prior to surgery, they may monitor your brain function using a functional MRI. Providers call this interoperative brain mapping. This process helps your surgeon avoid important areas of the brain during surgery.

Brain surgery can take anywhere from two to nine hours or more, depending on the complexity of your surgery.