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In 2008, when we published a year-end essay on psychosurgery (JW Psychiatry Dec 29 2008), ablative procedures and deep brain stimulation (DBS) were promising treatments for refractory depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Since then, several new reports have emerged, warranting an update on surgical and instrumental therapies.
In 1888, Gottlieb Burckhardt performed the first modern psychosurgery (Neurosurg Focus 2008; 25:E9). Prefrontal leucotomy, popular from the 1930s to the 1950s, later fell into disrepute. In 2009, a follow-up study (roughly, 45 years) showed no differences in symptoms or functioning between 20 patients with schizophrenia who had undergone prefrontal leucotomy and 51 similarly aged s…