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. 1973 Dec;49(578):825–833. doi: 10.1136/pgmj.49.578.825

Psychosurgery and the limbic system

Desmond Kelly
PMCID: PMC2495449  PMID: 4618902

Abstract

The limbic system can be considered to consist of a central ‘core’ from which three well-defined circuits emerge. These are the Papez or medial circuit, the basolateral circuit and the defence reaction circuit. The functions of the primitive limbic brain are modulated by a higher order control—the frontal lobe. Emotional responses and physiological changes have been obtained by stimulation of fronto-limbic pathways and limbic circuits and these have been used for location of target sites in psychosurgery. For the relief of intractable depression and anxiety, lesions are generally made in the lower medial quadrant or posteroorbital part of the frontal lobe, where there is a concentration of fronto-limbic connections. In primary obsessional neurosis lesions at this site produce less satisfactory results, but these illnesses may be helped by lesions in the cingulate gyrus, which is part of the Papez circuit. Patients with epilepsy and aggressive outbursts may respond to temporal lobotomy, or to operations, such as amygdalotomy, where lesions are placed in the defence reaction circuit.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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