Good news! Have we finally overcome the Lobotomy disaster? Until we have better treatments perhaps psychiatric surgery should be considered in limited, severe cases.
"Lobotomies are no longer a go-to treatment for mental disorders, but growing evidence suggests that a refined version of the technique is effective in some people with severe psychiatric conditions.
Modern neuropsychiatric surgeons use lasers, radiation or focused ultrasound beams to precisely remove small amounts of neural tissue, severing certain connections between brain regions involved in emotion and behaviour. Yet many psychiatrists are still wary of the technique, given that its effects are so permanent."
"... The numbers of patients who receive such treatments is still tiny.
Lipsman’s clinic in Toronto, for example, performs about two psychiatric neurosurgeries a month, though he said it has the capacity to do more.
And the Brown-affiliated program has only seen about 110 patients since 1993, when psychiatric neurosurgery procedures were first offered there. Meanwhile, just a handful of centers in the U.S. offer neurosurgery for psychiatric conditions ..."
Cutting Edge: The Cautious Optimism for Psychiatric Brain Surgery "For some patients, removing brain tissue can help treat OCD and other disorders. But ethical concerns remain."
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