The 49-year-old Ms. Li began to experience left eyelid fluttering four years ago, and three months later the left eye twitching appeared, and the range gradually expanded to the left corner of the mouth in just six months. At first, the twitching symptoms would appear only every few days, but as the disease progressed, it would appear every time she ate, smiled or even rested quietly, and the symptoms were more serious when talking with outsiders and when she was emotionally stressed. A checkup at the local hospital said that there was insufficient blood supply to the brain, and the doctor told her to rest for relief. She had acupuncture treatments, but they would soon recur. This year, Ms. Li went to Sanbo Brain Hospital of Capital Medical University for a detailed examination and was diagnosed with idiopathic facial muscle spasm. The cause of her facial twitching was an abnormal blood vessel compressing the facial nerve, and microvascular decompression surgery was the only way to eradicate the disease. Recently, Dr. Ren Jie, deputy chief of functional neurosurgery of Sanbo, applied minimally invasive microscopic neurosurgical techniques to perform the surgery on her. During the surgery, advanced electrophysiological recorders were applied to protect the function of the facial nerve and the auditory nerve, and real-time judgement was made to determine whether the vascular decompression was sufficient, which greatly improved the success rate of the surgery and shortened the operation time. After the operation, Ms. Li’s symptoms completely disappeared, and the incision behind the ear was only 5cm without any adverse reaction. According to Dr. Ren Jie, deputy chief of functional neurosurgery at Sanbo, although microvascular decompression is a minimally invasive surgery, its difficulty lies in finding the abnormal blood vessels and separating them from the facial and auditory nerves. Therefore, correctly determining the responsible vessel is the key to the success of the surgery, and the complications of the surgery are mostly caused by the damage to the facial and auditory nerves. Functional monitoring during surgery can help determine the responsible vessel and detect nerve irritation in time. Above: Vascular compression of the nerve leading to area spasms.