A Neurosurgeon Critiques Latest James Bond Film’s Grasp of Brain Surgery

The James Bond franchise is entertaining and remunerative , but it ’s not a very honorable way to learn about form . That ’s the finale of a neurosurgeon , who remark that Spectre , the latest flick in the dealership , fails rather stunningly in its depiction of virtual neurosurgery .

Note : Spoilers for Spectre .

When Dr. Michael Cusimano is n’t performing neurosurgery at St. Michael ’s Hospital , he is watching James Bond films and read James Bond books . This seems like a frustrating hobby for a Dr. , since the James Bond franchise has magnificently promoted medical myth . In Bond ’s macrocosm , brood a woman with paint will vote out her , and men can be trained todraw their testicles up into their consistency .

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Compared to that , Spectre does middling well on the anatomy front , Cusimonowrites in a Nature commentary . Ernst Stavro Blofeld straps Bond down and aims a drill at his foreland , hoping to erase his brain ’s electrical capacity to remember faces . Cusimano admits that the theoretical neuroscience is just about proper . Blofeld wants to take out the sidelong fusiform gyrus . The fusiform includes the “ fusiform face area , ” which involves facial realization .

unluckily , the film fell down when it comes to practical anatomy . They should have aim the practice in front of the leftover capitulum , alternatively of below and slightly behind it . This simply will not do , Cusimano says , because “ in terminus of today ’s precision brain surgery , the villain was nowhere near the mastermind . ” It was near the vertebral arterial blood vessel , though , so instead of erasing Bond ’s facial memory , Blofeld would probably have either given Bond a cerebrovascular accident , or killed him .

Cusimano stay on to study neuroscience and practice neurosurgery at St. Michael ’s . Blofeld could not be touch for scuttlebutt .

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