Psychosurgery: avoiding old problems, facing new ones
Antonio De Salles, Professor of Neurosurgery – UCLA
Lincoln Frias, postdoct UFMG-Brazil, International Neuroethics Society
Jorge Moll, D’Or Institute-Brazil, International Neuroethics Society
Psychosurgery has a bad name. The destruction or disconnection of brain tissue to treat mental illness was brought into disrepute by controversial figures of the past, who performed lobotomies with poorly defined clinical indications and without respect to even the most basic surgical practices of asepsis and hemostasis. The procedures were irreversible, unsafe, and often done without adequate informed consent. In many cases the surgeries drastically reduced the patients’ well-being and autonomy. To avoid this, governments put in place stringent regulations on these procedures. Coupled with developments in psychopharmacology, this left psychosurgery only as a last resort for extreme cases. The moral problem is that the stereotypes and stigma evoked by this kind of treatment are largely inadequate given current technology.
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