A lesson from the past: Lobotomising

the prefrontal cortex

Your knowledge of a lobotomy may be based on Jack Nicolson’s excellent portrayal

of a rebellious patient at a mental hospital in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s

Nest. According to the other patients in the hospital, a lobotomy effectively reduced

someone to the same mental state as a shop window mannequin – expressionless

and unemotional.

The lobotomy procedure consists of cutting the brain connections that go in and

out of the prefrontal cortex (see ‘Keeping the brain alert and active’ for informa-

tion on the prefrontal cortex). Doctors considered a lobotomy the final step for

modifying extreme behaviour when other treatments, such as shock therapy or

electrical shock treatment, failed to change a patient’s behaviour. Doctors thought

that a lobotomy calmed the patient, reduced aggressive behaviour, and improved

the patient’s quality of life. However, scientists now know that this procedure is no

longer necessary.

Perhaps one of the youngest known recipients of a lobotomy is Howard Dully, who

was only 12 years old at the time. As a result of a diagnosis of childhood schizo-

phrenia (that was unconfirmed by other medical professionals at the time), Howard

underwent the procedure. His mental illness manifested itself in some ways as a

typical teenager – he was moody, insolent, and contrary. However, the truth behind

his behaviour was harder to decipher – what was Dully really like and was his

behaviour so extreme that a lobotomy was the only option? These questions have

spawned Dully’s lifelong search for answers.

He took several decades to recover, drifting from a mental institute, to prison, and

finally to the streets. He’s since overcome his setbacks and recounted his story in a

harrowing tale of survival and redemption from a brutal procedure once considered

acceptable by doctors but, thankfully, no longer in practice today.

Dully’s story is interesting because it reveals that our knowledge of the brain is

evolving. His journey has also served to fuel many heated discussions about how

the brain works and the impact of removing sections of the brain.

Posts les plus consultés de ce blog

 Feeling good from exercise Exercise is also great for your mental health. It doesn’t just leave you feeling good, but it can also improve feelings of depression and anxiety (see Chapter 9 for more on how to improve your mental health). Plasticity or neuroplasticity is the way the brain can change throughout your life by forming new connections between brain cells, which are called neurons. Most of the change occurs during infancy and childhood when the brain is learning and growing the most. But the brain can also change after an injury that’s dam- aged some part of its functioning. More recently, science has also discovered that the brain is ‘plastic’, even in adulthood. Whenever you’re learning something new, your brain changes to adapt to this new information (see Chapter 7 for how this happens with taxi drivers). Exercise also plays a role in brain cell (neuron) growth in the hippocampus of adults. Schizophrenia is associated with smaller brain volume, particu- lar...
Lire la suite
 Where you are matters A diving instructor was puzzled because his divers kept forgetting objects that they’d found underwater, even when he asked the divers about the objects shortly after they were back on dry land. To find out why this was the case, some psycholo- gists conducted an experiment with divers. The psychologists gave one group of underwater divers a list of words to learn underwater and gave another group a list to learn on land. They then tested the divers’ memories of the word list both on land and underwater. The group that learned the list underwater remembered the list much better in the water but struggled to remember it on land. In contrast, the group who learned the list on land had better memories on land but forgot the list when they were underwater. This story is a great example of how remembering where you were when you learned the information can boost your memory.
Lire la suite