Psychosurgery Topics

• deep brain stimulation
• alcohol dependence
• signal improvements
• novel tools
• gamma knife
• psychiatric medication
• medical profession
• psychiatric history
• invasive techniques
• invasive treatment
• electroconvulsive therapy
• behaviour therapy
• human characteristics
• sexual disorders
• lobotomy
• psychopharmacology
• head injuries
• germany japan
• irradiation
• neurosurgery

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Psychosurgery, Psychosurgery

It was originally thought that by severing the nerves that give power to ideas you would achieve the desirable result of a loss of affect and an emotional flattening which would diminish creativity and imagination; the idea being that those are the human characteristics that are disturbed. Historically, the procedure typically considered psychosurgery, prefrontal leukotomy is now almost universally shunned as inappropriate, due in part to the emergence of less-invasive or less-objectionable methods of treatment such as psychiatric medication and modified electroconvulsive therapy. In modern neurosurgery however, more minimally invasive techniques like gamma knife irradiation and foremost deep brain stimulation have arisen as novel tools for psychosurgery.

This may have been done in an attempt to allow the brain to expand in the case of increased brain fluid pressure, for example, after head injuries. However, psychosurgery as understood today was not commonly practiced until the early 20th century. Berrios G E (1997) The Origins of Psychosurgery.

The era of lobotomy is now generally regarded as a barbaric episode in psychiatric history. There was a strong division amongst the medical profession as to the efficacy of the treatment, and concern over both the irreversible nature of the operation and to its extension into the treatment of unsuitable cases (drug or alcohol dependence, sexual disorders, etc). Psychosurgery was offered in only a few centers, and by the 1960s the number of operations was in decline. Signal improvements in psychopharmacology and behaviour therapy provided the opportunity for more effective and less-invasive treatment.

It concluded that, in general, psychosurgery had positive effects. However, concerns about lobotomy steadily grew, and countries such as Germany, Japan and several U.S. states prohibited it.

Source: Wikipedia > Psychosurgery