Lobotomy
An operation that cuts the connections between the frontal lobes and the rest of the brain. Begun by Egas Moniz of Portugal in 1935 as "leucotomy", it spread in the United States under the name "lobotomy".
Moniz reasoned that mental illness with intense emotional tension might ease if the connections between the frontal lobes, behind the forehead, and the rest of the brain were cut[1]. Because the operation cut the white matter, where nerve fibres run in bundles, he named it leucotomy, from the word for white[2]. Of his first twenty patients he reported seven cured and seven improved, with no comparison group[3]. Moniz received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949[1].
Changes in personality after the operation, with emotion and drive flattened, had been noticed by the end of the 1930s[1]. Later studies that compared operated patients with similar patients who had no operation found no meaningful difference in the rate of discharge[4].
Related terms
- Electroconvulsive therapyA treatment that passes an electric current through the head to bring on a convulsion. Begun in Rome in 1938 by Ugo Cerletti and colleagues; today it is given under anaesthesia and used for severe depression.
- ChlorpromazineA drug that eases the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenia. Synthesised in France in 1951 and tried as an aid to anaesthesia, it entered psychiatry in 1952.
Sources
- B. Jansson, “Controversial Psychosurgery Resulted in a Nobel Prize,” NobelPrize.org (1998).
- H. Olivecrona, “Presentation Speech, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1949,” Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Amsterdam: Elsevier (1964) (1949).
- G. W. Fenton, “Neurosurgery for mental disorder: past and present,” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 5(4), 261–270 (1999).
- K. G. McKenzie, G. Kaczanowski, “Prefrontal Leukotomy: A Five-Year Controlled Study,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 91(23), 1193–1196 (1964).