Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A lobotomy (from Greek λοβός (lobos) 'lobe' and τομή (tomē) 'cut, slice') or leucotomy is a discredited form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy, depression) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. [1]
Watts and Freeman wrote two books on lobotomies: Psychosurgery, Intelligence, Emotion and Social Behavior Following Prefrontal Lobotomy for Medical Disorders in 1942, and Psychosurgery in the Treatment of Mental Disorders and Intractable Pain in 1950. He is also known for carrying out the lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy under the supervision of ...
This device eventually largely replaced earlier devices because of the reduction in cognitive side effects, although as of 2012 some ECT clinics still were using sine-wave devices. [ 26 ] The 1970s saw the publication of the first American Psychiatric Association (APA) task force report on electroconvulsive therapy (to be followed by further ...
All the forms of psychosurgery in use today (or used in recent years) target the limbic system, which involves structures such as the amygdala, hippocampus, certain thalamic and hypothalamic nuclei, prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, and cingulate gyrus—all connected by fibre pathways and thought to play a part in the regulation of emotion. [9]
The prefrontal cortex, the most anterior region of the brain, comprises several key areas that are particularly important for higher mental functions that control various aspects of human personality including anticipation and planning, initiative/judgement, memory and the control of decision making. [13]
A frontal lobotomy (sometimes called frontal leucotomy) successfully reduced distress but at the cost of often blunting the subject's emotions, volition and personality. The indiscriminate use of this psychosurgical procedure, combined with its severe side effects and a mortality rate of 7.4 to 17 per cent, [17] earned it a bad reputation. The ...
A single test, such as the WCST, cannot be used to measure the effects of a frontal lobe injury, or the aspects of cognitive function it may affect, such as working memory; variety of tests must be used. A subject may be good at one task but show dysfunction in executive function overall. Similarly, test results can be made misleading after ...
The New York Times discussed the personality changes of lobotomy in 1947, and in the same year the Science Digest reported on papers questioning the effects of lobotomy on personality and intelligence. [84] The lobotomy was prominently depicted a means to control nonconformity in the 1962 book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. [85]: 70