
Guitarist Has Brain Surgery, and Strums All the Way Through - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/world/africa/south-africa-guitarist-brain-surgery.html
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tdons
This reminds me of a video I saw of an opera singer performing whilst being
operated on (brain surgery).

Right at the 2:45 mark his singing becomes garbled because (I presume) the
surgeon 'touches' a part of the brain involved in singing. His singing
recovers later on in the video.

Have a look for yourselves:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j70on4v3M4E&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j70on4v3M4E&feature=youtu.be&t=150)

~~~
tomcam
Amazing and disturbing. The recovery is welcome. The moment you highlight
looks like a stroke but isn’t of course.

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reallymental
Most people have heard of this "method" of performing invasive brain surgery
(so that the surgeon knows he/she's not messing with the patient's ability to
play the guitar, which may be linked to other abilities etc.).

But I've literally never seen a story where they did this, and they found that
the patient stopped playing the guitar/stumbled playing it/played better than
ever before.

So what happens in any of those cases?

1) If they stop playing ? Does it mean they have 'damaged' a part of the brain
? Can you actually fix it ?

2) If they stumble/forget parts of the tune? Have you partially damaged the
part of the brain that's responsible for that muscle memory?

3) If they suddenly become Hendrix? Have you found a way to turn mortals into
gods with a metal stick ?

I'd think the distribution leans heavily towards 1) than 2) or 3).

But I've never seen any (1, 2 or 3), either they don't occur (i.e the surgery
is just routine without any adverse effects) or I've not bothered to dig that
deep into medical journals.

Any links would be appreciated.

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stephencanon
My wife does these surgeries. I'm not going to ask her for journal citations
on Christmas, but paraphrased answers:

1\. You use electrodes to interfere with each piece they are are going to
resect, and see if it interferes with the task they are having the patient
perform. This is a mostly non-destructive way to test before doing something
that damages the brain. It is not completely perfect for a bunch of complex
reasons, but it works pretty well.

2\. It's somewhat more complex than that (especially "the part of the brain
that's responsible for that muscle memory"), but the goal is to identify the
regions you want to avoid removing _before_ you damage them.

3\. "Becoming Hendrix" doesn't happen, but it's common for people to be able
to perform the task in question better post-surgery than before. The reason
for this is simple: you do these surgeries because the tumor is very close to
the region whose function you want to preserve, and it tends to be interfering
with the normal operation of that region already due to that proximity (if it
_wasn 't_ interfering, you would try to delay surgery until it was). Removing
the tumor removes that interference.

~~~
rrdharan
Not exactly the same but there are a few documented examples of people
developing astonishing creative abilities as a side effect of degenerative
brain disorders:

[http://brainblogger.com/2012/09/23/what-is-creativity-art-
as...](http://brainblogger.com/2012/09/23/what-is-creativity-art-as-a-symptom-
of-brain-disease/) [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/unraveling-
bolero](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/unraveling-bolero)
[https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/131/1/39/346188](https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/131/1/39/346188)

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throwaway8879
Slightly related anecdote. I was in a coma for a month just over a year ago
which left me with moderate nerve damage in my fretting hand. I'm still
working on adapting my technique to better suit my condition. Initially, at
least for a few months, I had trouble remembering any theory at all, but felt
like I could improvise better after my coma, as weird as it sounds.

Funnily enough, even though my alternate-picking speed isn't the same, my
legato playing has improved a ton. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps something
to do with the nerve damage and how the muscles have "reset" since then.

Any other musicians here recovering from an injury? What have your experiences
been like?

~~~
justtopost
Had to relearn after breaking my fretting hand in a hairy motorcycle accident.
Worse at chords, but better at blues and country style rolls now. I feel much
of the change is just due to the reset in my playing due to a long break and
some forgotten habits.

I seem to recall hearing that Frank Zappa would 'quit' guitar every few years
to approach it fresh. Perhaps there is somehing to it.

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pcarolan
My wife went through this about a year ago. They do this because brain cancers
are so invasive that you basically want to remove as much brain matter around
the tumor as possible with minimal functional deficiency afterwards. This is a
tradeoff because it means they would want to take more, but cannot due to the
functional impairment. They stimulate the brain with electric probes to find
the coherent structures within the brain. This technique is actually quite
old, pioneered in Canada over 50 years ago, and proliferated recently at UCSF.
It is a miracle to those with benign cancers, but in most cases prolongs life
by months not years unfortunately.

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fierro
interesting you mention UCSF. I just met someone working in the lab that is
doing this research, and was astonished to discover patients are awake during
brain surgery for this exact reason; to discover and preserve the parts of the
brain most critical to certain areas of life -- areas that differ person to
person.

She also said each brain looks way different. Some a grey, some are pink.

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ReptileMan
A bassist and brain surgery - the setup of the joke is almost perfect.

Does anyone knows if they tinker in the wrong part how much damage will be
done/recoverable from? The brain should in theory rebuild the missing links
eventually...

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rtkwe
The old technique last time I was reading about this was the stimulate areas
with an electrode before doing any work there. The electricity would disrupt
the function temporarily so the surgeons would know that that part was
integral to whatever function they were attempting to preserve.

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etxm
All metal bands making music videos need to step it up.

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Tomte
My phonetics and phonology professor used to be a clinical linguist at a big
hospital.

He did similar stuff, consulting with surgeons before the operation, in order
to minimize damage to speech areals.

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jejones3141
Reminds me of surgery banjo player Eddie Adcock underwent to deal with a
tremor that interfered with his playing. It was quite successful.

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anilakar
Next level: Make someone play Asturias by Isaac Albeniz

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tomcam
Not sure I agree at all, since most of that piece is muscle memory, something
very different from improvising jazz.

