

Gamma Knife: a radical treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder patients - TriinT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/obsessive-complusive-disorder-gamma-knife

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jodrellblank
"""These beams converged on a pinpoint-accurate spot where they created a
lesion that damaged a tiny area of tissue, blocking the pathway that caused
the OCD symptoms.

This is modern psychosurgery, a hi-tech, experimental, descendant of the now
infamous frontal lobotomy"""

Accurately damaging a small, specific area which has been identified as
causing a particular problem is a far cry from jabbing ice-picks through the
eye sockets, scrambling the frontal lobe and claiming it's a treatment for
anything from depression and hysteria to "being a bit of a twat".

Surely it's more a descendent of traditional scalpel neurosurgery? Still
sounds a bit creepy, but there's no need to tar it with that kind of negative
association, is there?

