Oh, what a time to be alive! In the grand tradition of “because we can,” neurosurgeons have decided to give the da Vinci Surgical System a whirl in the brain’s nooks and crannies. Yes, that’s right, the same robot that’s been gallivanting around other parts of the body with its fancy arms and no sense of touch (haptic feedback is so last season) has made its way to the final frontier: neurosurgery. And what did these intrepid scientists do? They played around with cadaver heads to see how well this robotic marvel could stitch up the dura and drill bones without making a mess. Spoiler: it’s a mixed bag.

Armed with a 30°-angled drill (because angles are everything in neurosurgery), the da Vinci Xi robot, which sounds more like a Star Wars character than a surgical tool, managed to expose all sorts of hard-to-reach places like the nasopharyngeal sites and the eustachian tubes—without turning the patient into a Picasso painting. And guess what? It did all this through the mouth! That’s right, no need to crack open the skull when you can just take the scenic route through the oral cavity.

But here’s the kicker: this robot, in all its glory, was actually faster at suturing than a human using the old-school endonasal approach. I know, I know, it’s like finding out your new smartphone can actually make calls. And for the first time ever, these researchers showed that you can stitch up deep-seated brain lesions through the mouth. Take that, traditional surgery!

However, before we hand over the keys to the operating room to our robotic overlords, it seems there’s a bit of fine-tuning needed. The instruments are a tad clunky for the delicate work of brain surgery, and there’s that tiny issue of not being able to feel what you’re doing. But hey, who needs feedback when you’re drilling into someone’s skull base?

In conclusion, this preclinical joyride with the da Vinci robot shows that maybe, just maybe, we can let robots poke around our brains through our mouths. But first, maybe let’s make sure they can actually do the job without turning it into a game of Operation. Here’s to the future of neurosurgery, where the only limit is the reach of a robot’s arm (and the foramen ovale, apparently).