Abstract

[Maymarshalled by the various researchers, Fulton points tentatively to the cingulate operation for anxiety states and for obsessional and aggressive psychotics. “It seems clear that the depressed patient and the schizophrenic with subnormal psychomotor activity should have a resection of the posterior orbital gyrus or an interruption of its Proj ections, while the agitated, aggressive and overactive psychotic should have either a cingulectomy or a topectomy involving areas 9 and 10. With the orbital surface lesion there is no intellectual impairment, while some degree of intellectual impairment inevitably follows upon a lesion of the lateral surface or section of its projections.” The medial ventral quadrant of the frontal lobe appears to be the critical location, and Fulton believes that operations in this area are of particular value in the control of unbearable pain. “The implications of lobotomy are vast, for the neurosurgeon is in fact dissecting the matrix of the mind with the end in view of correcting faulty structure and interrupting vicious circles which form the basis of abnormal mental states. . The possibilities inherent in lobotomy for returning the mentally ill to a happier and more useful existence provide one of the most challenging problems in