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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]
Walter Jackson Freeman II (November 14, 1895 – May 31, 1972) was an American physician who specialized in lobotomy. [1] Wanting to simplify lobotomies so that it could be carried out by psychiatrists in psychiatric hospitals, where there were often no operating rooms, surgeons, or anesthesia and limited budgets, Freeman invented a transorbital lobotomy procedure.
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 ...
Lobotomy (Sweden, 1949) The use of psychosurgery increased during the 1940s, and there was a proliferation of the techniques used for the operation. [4] In 1946 Freeman developed the transorbital lobotomy, based on a technique first reported by Italian psychiatrist Amarro Fiamberti. [4]
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]
Prefrontal lobotomy [ edit ] The bilateral interruption or severing of the connection between thalamocortical radiations and the medial and anterior thalamic nuclei results in a prefrontal lobotomy , which causes a drastic personality change and a subdued behavioral disposition without cortical injury.
The first country to ban lobotomy was the Soviet Union in 1950 as it was considered a practice that violated all forms of human rights. By the 1970s most nations had banned the procedure. A "light" version of Lobotomy, still used today on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, is called an anterior temporal leucotomy.
It was invented by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1948 to replace the unique form of leucotome used up until that point for the transorbital lobotomy procedure. This instrument is, essentially, an ice pick with some gradation marks etched onto the shaft.