Psychiatric neurosurgery 2009: review and perspective

Abstract

In the treatment of psychiatric disorders, modern lesion procedures and nonablative deep brain stimulation (DBS) offer a degree of hope for patients who remain severely ill and impaired despite pharmacological and behavioral treatments. The available data support the therapeutic promise of these procedures, primarily for those suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the use of neurosurgical treatments for psychiatric disorders must be approached with both caution and a commitment to long-term care. The data also show that psychiatric neurosurgical procedures can be implemented most successfully by dedicated interdisciplinary teams in the context of a multimodal treatment plan. Treatment using these procedures is further complicated by issues involving the criteria for patient selection, the long-term management of patients receiving psychiatric neurosurgery, and the different patterns of potential clinical benefits and burdens presented by DBS and contemporary lesion procedures.