MAN PLAYS GUITAR UNDERGOING SURGERY

Brave or bizarre? A US man found a a novel way to help doctors perform a complex brain surgery on him - by playing his guitar! Actor-musician Brad Carter strummed his one-of-a-kind handmade guitar for six hours as doctors operated on him. Although Carter had to put down the guitar when he began experiencing debilitating hand tremors - his strumming skills came to good use when doctors implanted a wire inside his head, 'New York Daily News' reported. He used his tunes to guide surgeons through his brain as they implanted a pacemaker to ease the hand tremors that had plagued him for the better part of a decade. Carter's fancy fretwork helped his surgeons locate the best spot for a deep brain stimulation procedure that they hope will ease tremors in his hands that have kept him from his life's passion. "I've been a guitarist since 1988. Music is my first love. I'm an actor for a living, but I always have music to turn to. It's a part of your soul," Carter, an actor and musician in Los Angeles, told NBC's "Today". Carter began experiencing the hand tremors seven years ago. Medications didn't help, and he had to stop performing as a musician. Doctors diagnosed his condition as a benign essential tremor, and elected to try a surgical procedure called deep brain stimulation that is also used on patients with Parkinson's and some seizure disorders. Patients are typically awake for a portion of the brain surgery, and so was Carter, playing the guitar as doctors at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) hospital.