Mental Floss partners with National Geographic for live brain surgery on TV
Mental Floss, the educational and entertainment magazine co-founded by Hoover native and resident Will Pearson, is partnering with the National Geographic Channel on Sunday to take TV viewers inside the human brain during a live surgery.
According to the National Geographic Channel, it will be the first time in the history of U.S. television that a deep-brain surgery is broadcast live while the patient is still awake.
The elective surgery is taking place at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and the two-hour “Brain Surgery Live” broadcast is set to begin at 8 p.m. central time on both the National Geographic Channel and National Geographic Mundo channel. It will be broadcast in 171 countries and 45 languages, though it will not be live in some countries, according to National Geographic.
The patient will be fully awake and able to speak with the neurosurgeons and neurologists. Because the patient will be awake, neurologists will know where to target electrodes and put the patient through a series of tests to determine whether or not they’ve pinpointed the affected area of the brain.
There will be two manned, handheld cameras in the operating room, as well as several robotic cameras with inputs directly into the doctors’ surgical equipment. That means viewers will see exactly what the neurosurgery team is seeing: up-close, live images of the brain as it is being operated on in real time.
Journalist and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel will guide viewers through the live surgery, with expert commentary by neurosurgeon Dr. Rahul Jandial and neuroscientist Cara Santa Maria, host of the “Talk Nerdy” podcast.
Mental Floss was intimately involved in creating pre-produced features that will supplement the live surgery, chronicling what science and medicine have historically taught us about the brain and what is yet to be discovered.
Topics to be covered include cutting-edge technologies used in surgery, how virtual reality is changing medicine, what science can glean from the study of famous brains, how male and female brains compare, how the brain influences creativity, and how the brain interacts with the rest of the human body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved deep-brain stimulation surgery to treat essential tremor in 1997 and Parkinson’s disease in 2002. It is performed only at select medical centers.
“By partnering with National Geographic and Mental Floss, two incredible brands with a passion for exploring science, we hope to demystify brain surgery, diminishing the fear and stigma of this operation,” said Dr. Jonathan Miller, a neurosurgeon who is director of the Center for Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in a press release. “We hope that this live broadcast of a deep-brain stimulation surgery will educate viewers and offer a comprehensive look at this cutting-edge surgery.”
Pearson, who lives in Hoover’s Bluff Park community, said this is Mental Floss’ first time to be involved in the production of a full TV show.
Pearson in past years had a weekly short segment on “CNN Headline News” and still makes occasional appearances on “The Today Show,” but Mental Floss has intentionally stayed away from deeper involvement with TV for a long time, he said.
It’s difficult for an independent company such as Mental Floss to get into TV without giving up a lot of creative control, Pearson said. But his company has had on-and-off conversations with National Geographic for a good while and felt the network fits well with the Mental Floss brand, he said. “It was an excellent opportunity for us.”
The “Brain Surgery Live” show, put together by the Leftfield Pictures production company, is just the first of numerous partnerships Mental Floss plans with National Geographic, Pearson said. “We have plans to do much more with them,” he said.
Plans are in the works for other specials, as well as an ongoing series that Pearson said he hopes will start sometime next year.
Pearson said he has always been fascinated by the human brain, and Mental Floss has featured several articles on the brain over the years, so this TV special was a natural fit.
So many people are mystified by the idea of brain surgery, but deep-brain stimulation procedures are far more common than many people realize and are changing lives all over the world, Pearson said.
“By partnering with National Geographic, we have access to this modern-day medical marvel,” he said. “We felt like it was an opportunity to educate the public on this.”
The National Geographic Channel also has broadcast the Emmy-nominated "Brain Games" series and continues to celebrate the brain, feeding viewers' wonder and curiosity about the most complex and mysterious orgain in the human body, said Tim Pastore, president of the orginal programming and production wing of the network, in a press release.
"We're offering a real-time look into the center of a living brain that we hope will illuminate and teach, as well as tell a story that is unforgettable," Pastore said.
Here's the preview video by the National Geographic Channel: