Patent ID: 7988688

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a nerve-stimulation-and-surgical unit, the nerve-stimulation-and-surgical unit including: a first nerve-stimulation-light-emitting source that is operative to emit a first nerve-stimulation infrared optical signal at a first wavelength; a visible-light-emitting source operative to emit a visible optical pointer signal at a second wavelength that is visible to a human and that is different than the first wavelength and that is configured to indicate a location of the first nerve-stimulation infrared optical signal; a tissue-ablation laser source that selectively delivers a surgical pulse of optical energy that ablates animal tissue; a beam-combining unit located in the nerve-stimulation-and-surgical unit and operatively coupled to receive the first nerve-stimulation infrared optical signal from the first nerve-stimulation-light-emitting source, the visible optical pointer signal from the visible-light-emitting source, and the surgical pulse of optical energy from the tissue-ablation laser source, and to combine and output a single combined beam containing, the first nerve-stimulation infrared optical signal from the first nerve-stimulation-light-emitting source, the visible optical pointer signal from the visible-light-emitting source, and the surgical pulse of optical energy from the tissue-ablation laser source; an optical-delivery element located at a delivery tip of the nerve-stimulation-and-surgical unit, wherein the optical-delivery element delivers the single combined beam through the delivery tip and focuses the single combined beam onto a nerve of a subject such that the focused beam triggers a nerve-action potential response in the nerve; a nerve-response sensor operatively coupled to the nerve-stimulation-and-surgical unit, wherein the sensor senses a nerve response of the subject and generates signal information based on the nerve response; and control circuitry that is operatively coupled to control the first nerve-stimulation-light-emitting source, the visible-light emitting source, and the tissue-ablation laser source.