PD Dr. Johannes Sarnthein

 

Main Goals, Keywords

Intraoperative Neuromonitoring in the context of neurosurgical interventions, SEP, MEP, cortical mapping, brainstem mapping, electrophysiology in patients with tumors or movement disorders or epilepsy

Group Members

1 senior research fellow, 1 PhD student, MD students, 1 technician

Previous and Current Research

Intraoperative Neuromonitoring is developed to aid in complex neurosurgical interventions. During microsurgical operations, cortical areas and nerve fibers have to be mapped and their function monitored throughout the intervention to prevent neurological deficits. During functional interventions (DBS implantation) in patients with movement disorders the target area is identified.

Future Projects

We correlate intraoperative measurements with postoperative outcome to optimize warning criteria used to alert the surgical team. We analyse data obtained during surgery to investigate the physiological mechanisms involved. We investigate markers for the epileptogenic zone in preoperative recordings in epilepsy patients.

Techniques and Equipment

• Neuromonitoring during neurosurgery and in Intensive Care Unit
• 5 channel amplifier for Single Unit Activity in DBS patients
• 128 channel amplifier for EEG and Single Unit Activity in epilepsy patients

Selected Publication

• Bertalanffy H, Tissira N, Krayenbühl N, Bozinov O, Sarnthein J. Inter- and intra-patient variability of facial nerve response areas in the floor of the 4th ventricle. Neurosurgery, 68 (2011) 23-31.
  
• Wess C, Sarnthein J, Krayenbühl N, Scholz M, Kunze E, Meixensberger J. Spectral iEEG markers precede SSEP events during surgery for subarachnoid hemorrhage. Clinical Neurophysiology, 121 (2010) 2172-6.
  
• Sarnthein J, Andersson M, Zimmermann MB, Zumsteg D. High test-retest reliability of checkerboard reversal visual evoked potentials (VEP) over 8 months. Clinical Neurophysiology, 120 (2009)1835-40.

Funding

Vontobel Stiftung, ZIHP, EMDO Stiftung, Herzog-Egli Stiftung

URL

http://www.ini.ethz.ch/~johannes