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A brain surgeon begins an anterior cingulotomy by drilling a small hole into a patient's skull. The surgeon then inserts a tiny blade, cutting a path through brain tissue, then inserts a probe past sensitive nerves and bundles of blood vessels until it reaches a specific cluster of neural connections, a kind of switchboard linking emotional triggers to cognitive tasks. With the probe in place, the surgeon fires up a laser, burning away tissue until the beam has hollowed out about half a teaspoon of grey matter.
This is the shape of modern psychosurgery: Ablating parts of the brain to treat mental illnesses. Which might remind you of that maligned procedure, the lobotomy. But psychosurgeries are different. And not just because the ethics are better today; because the procedures actually work. Removing parts of a person's brain is always a dicey proposition. But for people who are mentally ill, when pills and psychiatry offer no solace, the laser-tipped probe can be a welcome relief.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 27 2015, @05:07AM
This is the part that struck me: could there ever be an ethical application of ineffective treatment? I mean, it is right there in the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm." If you do not know whether it will work, and that it could have negative side-effects, um, don't do it! Are you a physician, or a monster? So I fail to see how there is any improvement in ethics on this issue, unless this therapy actually is effective. OK, doc, burn me!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @05:16AM
I think at the very least you need to come up with an acceptable measurement of "working" and a magnitude of difference on that measurement that is practically relevant. If you do brain surgeries without that, you are in a gray area. In some cases there really may be nothing to lose from the perspective of the patient. But how do you really get consent from a person in the depths of depression?
Medical research is real hard. Psych research is real, real hard. Personally I don't see much useful data that has come out of it for many years and think they should abstain until there is a gameplan.