Sensory evoked potentials

May use Electrostimulation of peripheral nerves (somatosensory or (SSEP)), auditory clicks through earphones (auditory or AEP, AKA BAER (brainstem auditory evoked response)) or flashing lights through goggles (visual EP or VEP). Evoked potentials are most commonly used by neurosurgeons for intraoperative monitoring purposes. SSEP (especially from median nerve stimulation) also has prognostic significance in cervical spondylotic myelopathy, ¹⁾ although use for this purpose is limited.

Glioma surgery represents a significant advance with respect to improving resection rates using new surgical techniques, including intraoperative functional mapping, monitoring, and imaging. Functional mapping under awake craniotomy can be used to detect individual eloquent tissues of speech and/or motor functions in order to prevent unexpected deficits and promote extensive resection. In addition, monitoring the patient’s neurological findings during resection is also very useful for maximizing the removal rate and minimizing deficits by alarming that the touched area is close to eloquent regions and fibers. Assessing several types of evoked potentials, including motor evoked potentials (MEPs), sensory evoked potentials (SEPs), and visual evoked potentials (VEPs), is also helpful for performing surgical monitoring in patients under general anesthesia (GA) ²⁾.