Abstract: In recent decades, the development of the neurosurgery has changed from the traditional anatomical model to the modern anatomical- functional model. The nerve functions are maximally protected while lesions are removed as far as possible. Neurophysiological monitoring especially somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) can directly reflect the integrity of the sensory and motor nerve conduction pathways of the nervous system. At present, it has been widely used in the neurosurgery, spinal surgery, vascular surgery and other surgical fields. In recent years, more and more clinical surgeries involved spinal surgery, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring could timely find any reversible spinal cord damage such as mechanical stretch, ischemia, and anesthetic drugs, which not only improve the quality of surgery, reduce iatrogenic spinal cord injury, but also greatly improve the prognosis of patients and reduce postoperative neurological dysfunction and complications. In this paper, the research progress of neural electrophysiological monitoring techniques in spinal cord surgery is reviewed.

Key words: spinal cord injuries, evoked potentials, motor, evoked potentials, somatosensory, neuro electrophysiology, electromyography, intraoperative monitoring, review