Psychosurgery Seen as Unpredictable.

In a [rominent story, the New York Times (http://tinyurl.com/psychosurgery 11/27, A1, Carey) reported that “in the last decade or so, more than 500 people have undergone brain surgery for problems like depression, anxiety, Tourette’s syndrome,” and obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, “for all the progress that has been made, some psychiatrists and medical ethicists say, doctors still do not know much about the circuits they are tampering with, and the results are unpredictable: some people improve, others feel little or nothing, and an unlucky few actually get worse.” Psychiatrist Darin D. Dougherty, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said that “given the history of failed techniques, like frontal lobotomy,” should current psychosurgery experiments go wrong, “it’ll shut down this approach for another hundred years.”

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