Word: thalamus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...prefrontal lobotomy-the last resort for schizophrenics and manic-depressives. Using a technique devised by the University of Lisbon's emeritus professor Dr. Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, skilled neurosurgeons cut away important nerve connections in the prefrontal brain lobe (a seat of reasoning) and the thalamus in the rear of the brain (a way station for emotional responses). The operation's aim: helping the patient to a better adjustment with his environment...
...brain, isolating the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain (prefrontal lobotomy), or cutting part of it out (topectomy). Trying a new approach, Vienna-born Neurologist Ernest A. Spiegel and Brain Surgeon Henry T. Wycis, both of Philadelphia's Temple University, decided to work on the thalamus, at the base of the brain...
...thalamus, a sort of relay station, transmits nerve impulses to & from the frontal lobe. When these nerve pathways get out of whack, the doctors reasoned, emotional control becomes disturbed and insanity results. Why not operate on the thalamus direct instead of risking damage to the frontal lobe? The big difficulty was getting at the thalamus without wrecking three inches of brain...
...like a surveyor's transit; its four legs are mounted on a ring fixed to the patient's skull by a plaster cast. At the top is a hollow needle containing a fine electric wire. X-ray pictures are taken to establish the exact position of the thalamus; the legs of the instrument are adjusted to place the needle exactly over it. The patient is anesthetized, and a piece of bone directly under the needle is cut out by conventional surgery. Then the needle is lowered like a well-digger's rig into the thalamus...
...insane. But Psychiatrist Louis Lipschutz, clinical director of the hospital, decided to try psychosurgery. (She consented.) A surgeon carefully opened her skull (using a local anesthetic), sliced into the frontal lobes of the brain, cut most of the nerve connections to the thalamus (crossroads of the brain's nerves). The patient said: "I feel dopey." After the operation she cried, sucked her thumb, splashed in her bath like a two-year-old. But in a month, she acted like an adult...