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At Caltech, Gazzaniga worked with Sperry on the effects of split-brain surgery on perception, vision and other brain functions. The surgery, which was a treatment for severe epilepsy, involved severing the corpus callosum, which carries signals between the left-brain hemisphere, the seat of speech and analytical capacity, and the right-brain ...
He hammered an ice pick-like instrument, an orbitoclast, through the eye socket and swept through the frontal lobes. The transorbital or "ice pick" lobotomy was done under local anesthesia or using electroconvulsive therapy to render the patient unconscious and could be performed in mental hospitals lacking surgical facilities. [ 39 ]
A lobotomy (from Greek λοβός (lobos) 'lobe' and τομή (tomē) 'cut, slice') or leucotomy is a discredited form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy, depression) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. [1]
Invented by Canadian neurosurgeon Dr. Kenneth G. McKenzie in the 1940s, the leucotome has a narrow shaft which is inserted into the brain through a hole in the skull, and then a plunger on the back of the leucotome is depressed to extend a wire loop or metal strip into the brain. The leucotome is then rotated, cutting a core of brain tissue. [1]
Detail from The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch depicting trepanation (c. 1488–1516). Trepanning, also known as trepanation, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole (the verb trepan derives from Old French from Medieval Latin trepanum from Greek trúpanon, literally "borer, auger"), [1] [2] is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or ...
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty that focuses on the surgical treatment or rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nervous system, and cerebrovascular system. [1]
In this operation an ice-pick like instrument was inserted through the roof of the orbit (eye socket), driven in with a mallet, and swung to and fro to cut through the white matter. Freeman used electroconvulsive therapy in the place of a normal anaesthetic and carried out the operation without the aid of a neurosurgeon. This led to a rift with ...
Outcomes for each type of surgery vary widely depending on seizure localization, epilepsy specifics, and surgeon approach. Given that this is a new technique, more research into comparing outcomes is necessary but preliminary studies suggest lower seizure freedom. [37] [46] [47] See also ablative brain surgery. [48]