Describe how psychosurgical techniques and electric and magnetic therapies have changed and developed over the last several decades. Your response should include a comparison between the prefrontal lobotomy and deep lesioning, and between electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Explain why the older techniques were removed from active use.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders are brain surgeries used as a treatment for psychological disorders. One type of psychosurgery is the prefrontal lobotomy. This surgery, which involved severing the connections between the frontal lobes and the lower brain centers, was mainly used on institutionalized patients who were difficult to handle due to being highly agitated and aggressive. This produced permanent physical and mental changes, including a lack of emotion, changes in personality, declines in intelligence, and sometimes death. Both scientists and the general public viewed the procedure as cruel and ineffective because of its severe side effects.
Neurosurgery is still used today in the form of deep lesioning, which involves destruction of specific areas of the brain. This method has been used in extreme cases of mood and anxiety disorders, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The deep lesioning method is safer and produces fewer side effects than a prefrontal lobotomy because the damage to the brain is in a small, isolated area.
Electric and magnetic therapies stimulate areas of the brain to treat psychological disorders. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or shock therapy, is an older form of these types of therapies that involves passing a brief electrical current through the brain by placing electrodes on the sides of the head. This causes a seizure that lasts about 30 seconds, and then the person wakes. Individuals report feeling less depressed after the seizure. Although the reason ECT works to alleviate feelings of depression is unknown, one possible explanation is that the seizure "reboots" the brain. ECT is still used today, although patients are now sedated and given a muscle relaxant, which makes the procedure quick and painless. The side effects associated with ECT include a slight risk of confusion and memory loss just before and after the procedure. Although ECT has minimal side effects, the treatment is only effective for a short period time-in about half of patients, symptoms return within weeks or months, which means the person must undergo additional ECT sessions.
A newer technique is transcranial magnetic stimulation, which involves electrical stimulation in those areas of the brain thought to be involved in the regulation of mood. This relatively painless procedure is used as a treatment for depression and can be administered as an outpatient procedure in a doctor's office. An electromagnetic coil is placed on the scalp, and the coil is turned on and off repeatedly, up to ten times a second, for about 30 minutes. Transcranial magnetic stimulation has been shown to reduce auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia (not the case with ECT) and to help people with severe depression (as is also the case with ECT).