Resection of brain tumors in the proximity of eloquent cortex carries the potential risk of postoperative neurological deficit. The current trend aims towards the possibilities of functional mapping. The „gold“ standard of functional mapping is cortical electrical stimulation, in the case of language mapping, performed during the awake phase of surgery. In the presented paper, we evaluate the results of our own clinical study of 17 patients. Another rapidly developing functional localization method is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using the BOLD contrast. In the discussion, we review the evolution and the present state of these two methods.

        Key words: brain tumor, eloquent cortex, local anesthesia, cortical stimulation, functional magnetic resonance imaging