Neurosurgeons can safely run two operations at once without endangering patients, a study from Emory University in Atlanta concluded, part of a growing body of research in response to a Globe Spotlight Team report that found surgeons sometimes do simultaneous surgeries without telling patients.

The Emory researchers found no difference in complication rates between 1,303 cases that overlapped and 972 cases that didn’t at Emory University Hospital. However, the overlapping surgeries take longer, and patients may spend more time under anesthesia.

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Michelle M. Mello, a health law scholar at Stanford’s schools of law and medicine who is working on a study of concurrent surgeries at multiple hospitals, generally praised the JAMA Surgery study. But she said it has shortcomings, including the fact that it dealt with only one hospital. And it doesn’t distinguish between cases that overlap for only a few minutes and those that overlap for far longer.

“Do patients who have more overlap do worse than patients who have only a bit of overlap?” she said. “We just don’t know.”