Psychosurgery is a term for a surgical procedure on the human brain. The goal is to achieve relief or cure of a mental illness. It is a delicate and targeted intervention of the brain tissue.
What is psychosurgery?
Psychosurgery finds its origin almost 100 years ago. When medical professionals realized that mental illnesses were due to disorders in specific areas of the brain, the first interventions began. In 1930, the first techniques were used to perform an intervention in the human brain to modify various mental disorders. The aim is to destroy damaged brain tissue and thus achieve an improvement in the state of health. Lobotomy has become known worldwide as one of the first procedures. This very controversial method was introduced in the post-war period and received the Nobel Prize at that time. The cutting of nerve tracts was supposed to cure severe mental illness. Unfortunately, the side effects are very dramatic and are often accompanied by lifelong severe disabilities. For this reason, it is not used. Instead, researchers have drawn the appropriate conclusions and refined their techniques. Psychosurgery in modern times consists of small and very delicate interventions. Mostly, probes, electric shocks or laser irradiation are used to reduce or cure mental suffering or distress. Cuts in brain tissue are made selectively and very carefully to avoid damaging healthy tissue.
Function, effect, and goals
Psychosurgery distinguishes irreversible from reversible procedures. In irreversible methods, tissue is removed or cut. Regeneration is no longer possible, and failure symptoms of the affected region occur. A pain condition is often eliminated during such an operation and no longer occurs. Nevertheless, it must be checked in advance whether other functions will not be permanently lost as a result. Since this often happens, the focus of psychosurgery is increasingly placed on reversible methods. Reversible methods usually involve fine surgical procedures, psychotropic drugs or other stimulation methods. Stimulation methods include the administration of electric shocks or even hormones. However, as soon as the stimulants are discontinued, the symptoms usually return. Psychosurgery in the surgical form is used to separate damaged brain tissue from healthy tissue. This is associated with a major challenge. It is not easy for physicians to separate only diseased cells from healthy ones. Therefore, surgical intervention is a very demanding and responsible method. The work is done in the brain with primarily probes or lasers to avoid damage. Often, during an intervention, different measurement and control methods are used to fine-tune the procedure. In the new development, the patient is fully conscious during an intervention despite local anesthesia. He has to answer certain questions or perform tasks so that the physician can precisely control his steps. This helps to be able to make a targeted separation between the healthy and diseased tissue. An immediate change of approach is made possible and damage is reduced. This lets show the probability of success and brings a very good response. One brain area often has several functions. Since the study of the brain is still ongoing despite many efforts, psychosurgery with its fine working tools allows the least possible failure of other systems. Psychosurgery focuses on disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks, Klüver-Bucy syndrome and epilepsy. In addition, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease or severe behavioral problems are also among the areas of application. In the treatment of Tourette’s syndrome or severe depression, psychosurgery has already been achieving good results for several years. For both disorders, patients are treated with electrical impulse generators. Light electric shocks provide deep brain stimulation, which often leads to an improvement in the patient’s state of health. Since the successes achieved through targeted work on the brain are steadily increasing, the areas of application for psychosurgery have been steadily expanding in recent years.Increasingly, the focus is on any illness or abnormality that is associated with altered behavior, a striking personality, or a difficulty with emotional processing.
Risks, side effects, and dangers
Psychosurgery is a procedure in which many side effects can occur. Tissue in the brain is particularly susceptible to lesions. During surgery, blood and nerve pathways can be damaged in addition to the tissue. Many venous blood vessels run in the human brain. The wall of these vessels are particularly thin-walled and thus very susceptible to damage. Hemorrhages in the brain can result in strokes. These can cause lifelong impairments due to paralysis or movement disorders. In addition, they can have a fatal outcome. The functions in the human brain have been well researched in recent decades. Great progress has been made. Researchers thus gained important insights into the areas in which certain evaluations are made. Despite all the progress, not all questions have been clarified to date. There are still many hypotheses and assumptions, since experiments on living humans cannot be carried out uncontrolled for ethical reasons. As a result, some areas have clear task assignments and lesions have corresponding failures. This is the case, for example, with the auditory or visual systems. However, other regions have different tasks and work with multiple systems. This is the case, for example, with memory formation or recall of knowledge as well as learned skills.
