A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of psychosurgery, a neurosurgical treatment of a mental disorder that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex.[2] Most of the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, were severed. It was used for treating mental disorders and occasionally other conditions as a mainstream procedure in some Western countries for more than two decades, despite general recognition of frequent and serious side effects. Some patients improved in some ways after the operation, but complications and impairments – sometimes severe – were frequent. The procedure was controversial from its initial use, in part due to the balance between benefits and risks. It is mostly rejected as an inhumane form of treatment now, to preserve patients' rights.[3]
The originator of the procedure, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 1949 for the "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses",[n 1] although the awarding of the prize has been subject to controversy.[5]
The use of the procedure increased dramatically from the early 1940s and into the 1950s; by 1951, almost 20,000 lobotomies had been performed in the United States and proportionally more in the United Kingdom.[6] More lobotomies were performed on women than on men: a 1951 study found that nearly 60% of American lobotomy patients were women, and limited data shows that 74% of lobotomies in Ontario from 1948 to 1952 were performed on female patients.[7][8][9] From the 1950s onward, lobotomy began to be abandoned,[10] first in the Soviet Union[11] and Europe.[12] The term is derived from Greek: λοβός lobos "lobe" and τομή tomē "cut, slice".
