prefrontal lobotomy

noun

1. Surgery.,  a psychosurgical procedure in which the frontal lobes are separated from the rest of the brain by cutting the connecting nerve fibers.

Word History and Origins

Origin of prefrontal lobotomy¹

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Something like estimated 75% of all cases of prefrontal lobotomy in the 1940s and '50s were women, and many of those women were older.

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A paint factory boasts a state-of-the-art hospital with a machine capable of executing a noninvasive equivalent of a prefrontal lobotomy.

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Psychosurgery, notoriously prefrontal lobotomy, also has a tragic history of abuse.

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He is trenchant on psychiatry’s failures, from prefrontal lobotomy to ‘care in the community’; critical of neuro-reductionism; eloquent on diagnosis debates; and ever aware of the human suffering at his chronicle’s core.

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Much of Shriver’s motivation came from the fate of older sister Rosemary, who spent her final 63 years in an institution after a disastrous prefrontal lobotomy left her incapacitated at age 23.

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