Ana Santana
Santa Cruz De Tenerife (EFE).- The neurosurgeon from the Canary Islands Jesús Martín-Fernández has performed the first awake surgery operation in Spain on the right hemisphere of the brain -the one that controls personality and the expression of emotions- in a patient who avatars created with artificial intelligence have been projected to identify and preserve the areas in charge of these functions.
For this, an artificial intelligence test with metahumans (avatars) designed by Jesús Martín-Fernández (Santa Cruz de La Palma, 1992) was applied for the first time in the world, who carried out this pioneering operation on February 1 at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, according to what the neurosurgeon told EFE.
The surgery was performed on a 44-year-old woman with a low-grade brain tumor affecting emotionally critical areas, such as the cingulum and corpus callosum, which was removed including these areas that have long been considered “inaccessible.” » while checking that the patient was able to perform the different tasks.
In the days that followed, the patient has presented so far with no deficit in cognitive processes, and is able to perform all the tests normally, explains the neurosurgeon, who expresses his gratitude to Gloria Villalba, head of Neurosurgery at Hospital del Mar.
«Normally when awake surgery has been done in Spain it has been performed on tumors located in the left hemisphere of the brain, since it is the one that controls language and therefore it is a matter of not damaging this ability or movement; but the human being is much more than language”, emphasizes Martín-Fernández.
Now the same technique has been performed but on the right hemisphere of the brain, the one that controls emotions, cognition, personality and decision-making, and the operation carried out at the Hospital del Mar, where the neurosurgeon has been invited, has been the The first in Spain and the first case in the world in which, in order to preserve the identification of emotions by the patient, “clips” of live emotions created from artificial intelligence have been used.
That is, the neurosurgeon and Francisco Pérez, a 3D artificial intelligence computer designer, have developed a moving image system of “metahumans” to “map” the critical areas involved in identifying complex emotions, as Jesús Martín-Fernández thought it was insufficient. display only static images that have been used up to now.
With dynamic images, complex emotions can be identified, emotional states that are not limited to happiness and sadness, but rather the patient has been exposed to “clips” in which she had to identify “social” emotions: jealousy, melancholy, frustration, mischief, shame or fantasy.
This implies that not only was it the first awake surgery of the right hemisphere performed in Spain to “control” emotions, but it was also a pioneer in using this complex system of emotional identification.
Jesús Martín-Fernández explains that awakened surgery in the right cerebral hemisphere has been developed in France, where he has been conducting a research stay with his mentor Professor Hugues Duffau for more than six months, but the neurosurgeon from the Canary Islands has given him “a turning” trying to go “further” by doing it with artificial intelligence, to bring it closer to the reality of this highly complex faculty.
“Every time you touch a certain region of the brain with the stimulator and the patient stops recognizing the emotion, when you have previously verified that she is able to identify it, it means that this area is critical, it cannot be touched”, details the researcher. , who went viral with his studies on the influence of different musical styles such as classical music and reggaeton on brain activity with an article published in the journal Neuroscience.
As an example, he indicates that in an awake surgery operation, the patient is also asked to identify semantic families through the exposure of images such as a dog, a cat and a lamppost in order to preserve their linguistic capacity.
In fact, Martín-Fernández has performed awake surgery on polyglot patients with brain tumors and refractory epilepsy, preserving all the languages learned, and in March he will perform surgery on a patient who speaks five languages.
The neurosurgeon, who is also a musical composer and has been asked to compose the soundtrack for various film productions, is also currently recording a documentary on the development of this type of awake surgery in the right hemisphere of the brain, for which he has new insights. interventions in different hospitals around the world. EFE
