Week Three — Position, Provocation, and the Wrong Guess
A pressure error that happens in every sitting case, three ways to ruin an epilepsy operation with a drug, a suite where guessing has a fifty per cent chance of making things worse, and a target that chooses your anaesthetic.
01
What this is
no new material
**No new material. Harder questions.**
Day 09 said the famous complication of the sitting position is venous air embolism, detected in up to 60% of cases and significant in about 2.7% — while the arterial pressure error happens in every single case and is fixed by one habit. Day 10 gave three distinct ways an anaesthetic ruins an epilepsy operation. Day 11 gave two intracranial catastrophes whose managements are opposites. Day 12 said the surgical target dictates the anaesthetic through receptor pharmacology.
Three of these four days are about doing the wrong thing confidently. The defence in each case is the same: establish which situation you are in before you act, because the actions are not merely different — they are opposed.
Answer first, then read. Checking the day before answering turns retrieval
practice into rereading, and the two feel identical while you are doing them.
03
The questions
9 of 10 application or analysis
Item 1Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
A patient is seated for a posterior fossa craniotomy with the transducer at the right atrium and the head 25 cm above it. The monitor shows a MAP of 70. What is the pressure at the circle of Willis, and what should change?
Item 2Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
Venous air embolism is described as the characteristic hazard of the sitting position. How should its frequency be understood?
Item 3Application Neuro 2 · Week 3
What is the specific additional concern raised by a patent foramen ovale in the sitting position, and how does nitrous oxide interact with it?
Item 4Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
An anaesthetic can ruin an epilepsy operation in three distinct ways. Which description is correct?
Item 5Application Neuro 2 · Week 3
A seizure starts during cortical stimulation with the head in pins. What is done first, and why is it first?
Item 6Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
A patient in the angiography suite develops a dense hemiparesis during coil embolisation. What is the first step?
Item 7Recall Neuro 2 · Week 3
What is the protamine dose for heparin reversal in the interventional suite?
Item 8Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
Why are pallidal microelectrode recordings frequently impossible under general anaesthesia when subthalamic recordings often survive sedation?
Item 9Application Neuro 2 · Week 3
Which sedation approach is preferred for microelectrode recording, and what is the reasoning?
Item 10Analysis Neuro 2 · Week 3
Three of this week's four days share a structural feature. Which description captures it?