The brain and spinal cord together form the central nervous system — the command centre for everything your body does. Every movement you make, every sensation you feel, every thought you have passes through this system. When something goes wrong inside it — a tumour pressing on brain tissue, a slipped disc compressing a spinal nerve, a bleed into the brain — the effects can be sudden and severe.

Neurological surgery is among the most technically demanding fields in medicine. The margin for error is small, the anatomy is complex, and the stakes are high. This is precisely why the advances of the last 20 years matter so much. Intraoperative MRI allows surgeons to take real-time images of the brain during an operation, confirming how much tumour has been removed without waking the patient. Neuronavigation systems work like GPS for the brain, mapping the exact location of surgical instruments in three dimensions. Endoscopic techniques allow surgeons to reach deep structures — pituitary tumours, for example — through the nose, without making any incision in the skull at all.

For spinal conditions, the shift toward minimally invasive surgery has been equally significant. A procedure that once required a long open incision in the back and days in hospital can now often be done through cuts smaller than a centimetre, with patients walking the same day and home the next morning.