Psychosurgery in the modern era: therapeutic and ethical aspects

Abstract

Brain operations for psychiatric illness were in the past the centre of public controversy. Fear of untoward side-effects and an exaggerated use of the procedure including treatment of societal aspects of the disease process caused a virtual cessation of psychosurgical operations. With the introduction of techniques that could accurately lesion specific areas in the brain, especially in the limbic system, psychosurgical procedures were revived. Psychiatric syndromes, such as obsessive-compulsive affective disorders, were shown to have benefited from such intervention, without giving rise to untoward side-effects. Given societal supervision it is appropriate to reconsider the use of psychosurgery in well-defined clinical entities of mental disease that do not respond to alternative therapy.