Frontal lobe

The frontal lobe is an area in the brains of vertebrates. Located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere, frontal lobes are positioned in front of (anterior to) the parietal lobes. The temporal lobes are located beneath and behind the frontal lobes.

Psychosurgery

In the early 20th century, a medical treatment for mental illness, first developed by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, involved damaging the pathways connecting the frontal lobe to the limbic system. 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 the severe side effects and dangerous nature of the operation gained it a bad reputation and the frontal lobotomy has largely died out as a psychiatric treatment.

Related Topics:
Mental illness - Portuguese - Neurologist - Egas Moniz - Limbic system - Lobotomy - Psychosurgical

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More precise psychosurgical procedures are still occasionally used, although are now very rare occurrences. They may include procedures such as the anterior capsulotomy (bilateral thermal lesions of the anterior limbs of the internal capsule) or the bilateral cingulotomy (bilateral thermal lesions of the anterior cingulate gyri) and might be used to treat otherwise untreatable obsessional disorders or clinical depression.

Related Topics:
Internal capsule - Bilateral cingulotomy - Cingulate gyri - Obsessional disorders - Clinical depression

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