The types of artifacts that are observed in intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (INM) is truly diverse. The removal of artifacts that interfere with the examination is essential. In addition, improving the quality of the examination by removing artifacts is a reflection of the competency of the examiner and is also the best way to ensure patient safety. However, if knowledge of the equipment or anesthesia in the operating room is insufficient due to lack of experience, artifacts cannot be removed even with a method appropriate to the situation. If artifacts are not separated and removed, the reading of the examination results in confusion in the operation process. This can be a fatal problem in neurosurgery that requires rapid and sophisticated procedures. In this paper, the causes of artifacts that occur during surgery are classified into electrical factors, non-electrical factors, and other factors, and a method and examination method for removing artifacts according to the specific situation is mentioned. Although the operating room environment is a very critical place to simultaneously consider various scenarios, we hope that a stable and optimal INM will play a role by knowing the types and causes of various artifacts and how to tackle them.

The purpose of spinal dural arteriovenous fistula (SDAVF) ligation is to prevent neurological injury and the poor blood supply through ligation of arteriovenous fistula. Therefore, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (INM) is required via multimodal neurological examination for minimizing the side effects after surgery based on the patient's symptoms. Transcranial electric motor-evoked potentials (TceMEP) help to check the condition of the corticospinal tract. Whenever ligation is performed, TceMEP should be performed every minute to check for abnormalities. However, an examiner's lack of knowledge about the operation procedure and examination and also poor communication between the examiner and surgeon can cause incorrect timing of the stimulation of TceMEP that interferes with the procedure and causes side effects such as paralysis and motor weakness. As a result of this SDAVF ligation survey, it is believed that for proper INM, case reports will be needed along with further research and the examiner will also have to work closely with the surgeon to minimize neurological damage to patients.

The purpose of the direct cortical and subcortical stimulation technique is to prevent false positives caused by transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials (TceMEP) in surgery on patients with brain tumors that have occurred around the motor cortex and to preserve the correct mapping of motor areas during surgery and the corticospinal tract. In addition, it reduces the trial and error that occurs during the intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (INM) process and minimizes the test time, so that accurate information is communicated to the surgeon with quick feedback on the test results. The most important factors of this technique are, first, examination at a stimulus threshold of a certain intensity, and second, maintaining anesthesia depth at an appropriate level to prevent false positives from occurring during surgery. The third is the installation of a multi-level channel recording electrode on the opposite side of the area of operation to measure the TceMEP waveform and the response to direct cortical and subcortical stimulation in as many muscles as possible. If these conditions are maintained, it is possible to predict causes that may occur in other factors, not false positives, from the INM test.

The temperature uniformity of most carbon fiber is degraded on the entire area. Therefore, understanding the thermal characteristics based on surface density and electrode shape becomes necessary. In this paper, the samples were fabricated according to the area density of carbon fiber and polyethylene terephthalate (8.8 g/m2, 20.2 g/m2, 42.1 g/m2). Different voltages (2V, 4V, 6V) were applied on them and the image was taken using thermal camera. Initially, the samples were investigated for morphology and element characterization by SEM-EDAX of surface heating elements and found that increased area density resulted in increase in the number of carbon atoms and decrease in number of oxygen atoms. It was also found from sheet resistance test that area density has inverse proportional relation with sheet resistance. In addition to that, regardless of the shape of the electrode, the increase in area density leads to a rise in temperature. It also increased the range of the temperature variation. Therefore, the uniformity and temperature stability can be satisfied by securing the electrode part as wide as possible through uniform electrode shape. In case of homogeneous electrode type, the saturation time of maximum temperature was 270 seconds, and the loading time was longer than 70 seconds of the concentrated electrode type. Therefore, in order to satisfy the reference temperature (30°C~ 50°C), the required surface heating product should be manufactured with the area density of 20.2 g/m2 at a voltage applied around 6V or less.

Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (INM) ensures the stability and safety of specific surgeries in high-risk groups. As part of INM, intensive tests are conducted during the surgical process. When INM tests are applied during surgery, a delay in notifying the operating surgeon in cases of neurological defects can cause serious irreversible sequelae to the patient. Aortic replacement, which is necessitated due to aortic aneurysms and aortic dissection, is a complicated procedure that blocks the blood flow to the heart. When arteries that branch out from the aorta and supply blood to the spinal cord are replaced, blood flow to the spinal cord decreases, resulting in spinal ischemia. In aortic surgery, INM plays an important role in preventing spinal ischemia and serious complications by quickly detecting the early signs of spinal ischemia during cross-clamping and reporting it to the surgeon. Therefore, this paper was prepared to help examiners who conduct INM by detailing the process, method, time, and warning criteria for INM. This paper identifies the need for INM in aortic surgery and the process flow for a smooth test, accurate and rapid examination, and subsequent reporting.