Insights from brain surgery on the conscious patient at Centre for the Creative Brain

St Edmund Hall’s Centre for the Creative Brain (CCB) held its first workshop of the new academic year on ‘The Human Mind: Insights from brain surgery on the conscious patient’ last Thursday 14 October 2021. The talk was led by guest speaker Dr Rahul Jandial, renowned neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and humanitarian who presented a unique evening exploring the human mind with insights from brain surgery on conscious patients.

Dr Jandial is a brain cancer surgeon and took the audience through his career and work. He started his career dealing with trauma to the brain and operating on patients who had arrived at hospital for emergency treatment. On the path to caring for patients with brain tumours, he also cared for patients needing deep brain stimulation with electrical pulses to stimulate a patient’s brain. In particular, he talked through his experiences of neurosurgery where the patient must be awake to most safely perform the needed surgery. When awake, patients can experience visions, profound emotions, smell and hear things which are not actually there. This fascinating talk ended with some deep questions about how patients are transformed by brain cancer surgery and how they find meaning and purpose from life’s most challenging trials. The talk was a glimpse into the content of his memoir Life on a Knife’s Edge – an international bestseller, translated into 5 languages.

The Centre for the Creative Brain is generously endorsed by St Edmund Hall and the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford. The Centre is led by Professor Charlie Stagg, Fellow by Special Election in Neuroscience at St Edmund Hall.