Viewers of National Geographic Channel got the rare chance on Sunday to watch a live brain surgery in Ohio on a patient who was awake during the entire procedure. This is one reality TV show that does not feature not-so-intelligent people who only live to shop or to become movie or TV actors, but focuses on brains.

The event is part of the channel’s two-hour special, aired at 9 pm ET, which was performed at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, reports Starpulse. The patient was 49-year-old Greg Grindley who hoped the surgery would “stop or dramatically reduce” the tremors he has as part of the early onset of Parkinson’s disease in 2004.

Grindley shares, “We made this decision together as a family to share this experience with the world, to open other people’s eyes to the remarkable procedure, and to give hope to those who are also suffering from tremors and Parkinson’s.”

The procedure is called deep brain stimulation which involves implanting four electrodes to try to reverse the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Jonathan Miller, the lead surgeon, answered questions from the viewers, while the patient replied to questions from the medical team in “Brain Surgery Live with Mental Floss.”

Miller is the director of Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery at the Ohio hospital where the procedure was done. He says that while the procedure is not cutting-edge technology but a regular surgery doctors perform every week, they decided to do it on live TV to publicise the problem and solution for Parkinson’s disease which many people are not aware of.

He made a one-inch long cut on the patient’s head by using a drill to make a small hole in Grindley’s skull. In a pre-surgery interview with National Geographic, Miller said “For the right kind of tremor, if you get the electrode in the right place, it’s as close to a guaranteed result as you can get.” He adds just getting a little improvement would make a big difference in the quality of life of the patient.

The procedure, Miller admits, has side effects which are whenever Grindley would receive medication, all of the symptoms would get a lot better. However, when his body gets used to the drugs, he would need more, and the side effects becomes more debilitating that he would have to take it every six hours which become four and two hours eventually while Grindley is awake.

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