Brain Surgery in the Blogosphere

This week, instead of doing a regular post, I decided to explore the blogosphere. I found two posts on something many of us may not be familiar with: brain surgery. The idea of directly manipulating the brain may cause us to think of old-fashioned lobotomies, like the one preformed on the main character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which rendered him mostly incapacitated. A lobotomy of this sort usually involved direct manipulation of the prefrontal cortex, either severing connections to it or removing it all together. The prefrontal cortex is thought to be the brain’s executive control center, responsible for organizing one’s thoughts and planning behavior. Lobotomies of this sort are not preformed today, at least in the United States. However, the first post I commented on was one on the blog Furious Seasons about modern-day “lobotomies” being preformed in China [as seen in the picture at right]. The second post I commented on was on the Wall Street Journal’s health blog and is about deep brain stimulation [picture below left] as a treatment for Tourette syndrome.

My Comment on "Lobotomies In China":

First of all, as an avid reader of your blog, I would like to thank you for calling attention to this important development in China. It seems to me that these brain surgeries are being preformed with little oversight and without any hard scientific evidence that they are effective. The story of the Mr. Mi in particular, is heart wrenching because of the fact that the damage to his brain is so totally irreversible. However, I am wondering if it may be a mistake to label these surgeries as lobotomies, since even the Wall Street Journal acknowledges that the “areas of the brain being targeted are more precise.” Also, isn’t the term “lobotomy” usually used in reference to manipulation of the prefrontal cortex in particular? Do we have any idea if this is also the area that Chinese surgeons are targeting? It is also interesting that Dr. Wang says “93% of respondents [to the surgery] had shown improvement.” If this figure is true, then the Wall Street Journal probably could have found one family to interview whose life had been improved by the surgery. Nevertheless, if there really are people who have improved because of this surgery, they may not have felt the need to risk getting in trouble with the government by talking to foreign reporters. Although the fact that these surgeries are so prevalent in China does at first lead me to think they are a clear-cut case of medical malpractice, it does not seem wise to me to draw conclusions about all of the patients from two interviews. Unfortunately it may not be possible in China, but I would like to see more research done on the outcomes of these surgeries before drawing conclusions.

My Comment on "Brain Stimulation Helps Tourette’s Patients":

First I would like to say thank you for posting on this new development in the treatment of Tourette syndrome. From my limited experience with people who have the disease, most of the treatments on the market now do not seem to work at a satisfactory level, so this treatment sounds very encouraging. However, I was wondering how the patients could not know if their brains were being subjected to deep brain stimulation. It would seem to me that getting a shock to the brain would be something that one would notice, but perhaps the shocks are very mild. I think it would also be interesting to see how this treatment does compare with drugs or if both drugs and DBS at the same time would yield even better results. Also, is it known how this treatment would work on a more widespread scale? Would patients undergoing treatment always have to visit a clinic once a month to have the device operated by doctors, or could patients learn to operate it by themselves? I have also heard of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for depression and other brain surgeries as treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hopefully, in the future, more direct brain treatments like this one will be as successful in treating other mental illnesses.