Lobotomy, surgical procedure in which the nerve pathways in a lobe or lobes of the brain are severed from those in other areas. The procedure was formerly used as a radical therapeutic measure to help patients with severe mental illness. It has since been superseded by medications and other therapies.
lobotomy, also called prefrontal leukotomy, surgical procedure in which the nerve pathways in a lobe or lobes of the brain are severed from those in other areas. The procedure was formerly used as a radical therapeutic measure to help grossly disturbed patients with schizophrenia, manic depression and mania (bipolar disorder), and other mental illnesses. Evidence that surgical manipulation of the brain could calm patients first emerged in the late 1880s, when Swiss physician Gottlieb Burkhardt, who supervised an insane asylum, removed parts of the brain cortex in patients suffering from auditory hallucinations and other symptoms of mental illness (symptoms later