Lobotomy (CN Part 3)

A lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery. It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. Lobotomies have now fallen out of use, as doctors use various drugs and psychological therapies to treat mental health issues. Lobotomies were used mainly from the 1930s to 1950s to treat a wide range of severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, clinical depression, and various anxiety disorders, as well as people who were considered a nuisance by demonstrating behavior characterized as, "moodiness" or "youthful defiance". The patient's informed consent in the modern sense was often not obtained. After the introduction of the antipsychotic chlorpromazine, lobotomies fell out of common use and the procedure has since been characterized "as one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by mainstream medicine".