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Frontiers in Neuroscience 2023Limbic surgery is one of the most attractive and retaken fields of functional neurosurgery in the last two decades. Psychiatric surgery emerged from the incipient work... (Review)
Review
Limbic surgery is one of the most attractive and retaken fields of functional neurosurgery in the last two decades. Psychiatric surgery emerged from the incipient work of Moniz and Lima lesioning the prefrontal cortex in agitated patients. Since the onset of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery with Spiegel and Wycis, the treatment of mental diseases gave attention to refractory illnesses mainly with the use of thalamotomies. Neurosis and some psychotic symptoms were treated by them. Several indications when lesioning the brain were included: obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and aggressiveness among others with a diversity of targets. The indiscriminately use of anatomical sites without enough scientific evidence, and uncertainly defined criteria for selecting patients merged with a deficiency in ethical aspects, brought a lack of procedures for a long time: only select clinics allowed this surgery around the world from 1950 to the 1990s. In 1999, Nuttin et al. began a new chapter in limbic surgery with the use of Deep Brain Stimulation, based on the experience of pain, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy. The efforts were focused on different targets to treat depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Nevertheless, other diseases were added to use neuromodulation. The goal of this article is to show the new opportunities to treat neuropsychiatric diseases.
PubMed: 37274213
DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1167244 -
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2019The last two decades have seen a re-emergence of surgery for intractable psychiatric disease, in large part due to increased use of deep brain stimulation. The... (Review)
Review
The last two decades have seen a re-emergence of surgery for intractable psychiatric disease, in large part due to increased use of deep brain stimulation. The development of more precise, image-guided, less invasive interventions has improved the safety of these procedures, even though the relative merits of modulation at various targets remain under investigation. With an increase in the number and type of interventions for modulating mood/anxiety circuits, the need for biomarkers to guide surgeries and predict treatment response is as critical as ever. Electroencephalography (EEG) has a long history in clinical neurology, cognitive neuroscience, and functional neurosurgery, but has limited prior usage in psychiatric surgery. MEDLINE, Embase, and Psyc-INFO searches on the use of EEG in guiding psychiatric surgery yielded 611 articles, which were screened for relevance and quality. We synthesized three important themes. First, considerable evidence supports EEG as a biomarker for response to various surgical and non-surgical therapies, but large-scale investigations are lacking. Second, intraoperative EEG is likely more valuable than surface EEG for guiding target selection, but comes at the cost of greater invasiveness. Finally, EEG may be a promising tool for objective functional feedback in developing "closed-loop" psychosurgeries, but more systematic investigations are required.
Topics: Deep Brain Stimulation; Electroencephalography; Forecasting; Humans; Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring; Mental Disorders; Neurosurgical Procedures; Psychosurgery
PubMed: 31412334
DOI: 10.1159/000500994 -
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2022Behavioral disorders exact a tragic toll on patients, families, and society. Consequently, the search for better treatments is a public health priority. Recent research... (Review)
Review
Behavioral disorders exact a tragic toll on patients, families, and society. Consequently, the search for better treatments is a public health priority. Recent research promises to lead to advances in psychiatric treatment that may include implantation of deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices. In this commentary, the authors discuss how promising results from initial pilot studies of DBS in treatment-resistant depression (TRD) were not validated in 2 randomized, controlled, multicenter trials. Reliance on pilot data may have contributed to the selection of primary efficacy endpoints that were not achieved, and to the underestimation of adverse events and device-related complications. Published data on the population prevalence of affective disorders also may have led sponsors to overestimate the number of patients with TRD who were candidates for DBS therapy. Consequently, a more complete discussion of certain aspects of the depression trials may allow a realistic appraisal of the clinical and ethical situation of DBS therapy for TRD in a US regulatory context. A US regulatory perspective also may clarify the clinical research and reimbursement consequences of the Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) approval status of DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Retrospective analyses akin to failure modes and effects analysis in engineering may clarify unexpected results in the DBS depression trials. Recent research suggests that subject selection in future trials may be augmented by advanced neuroimaging methods. For the present, the noncommercial research status of DBS to treat depression and the HDE status for OCD appear likely to remain in place.
Topics: Deep Brain Stimulation; Depressive Disorder, Treatment-Resistant; Humans; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Pilot Projects; Retrospective Studies
PubMed: 35104827
DOI: 10.1159/000521395 -
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2020The paper invites to reappraise the role of psychosurgery for and within the development of functional stereotactic neurosurgery. It highlights the significant and...
The paper invites to reappraise the role of psychosurgery for and within the development of functional stereotactic neurosurgery. It highlights the significant and long-lived role of stereotactic neurosurgery in the treatment of severe and chronic mental disorders. Stereotactic neurosurgery developed out of psychosurgery. It was leucotomy for psychiatric disorders and chronic pain that paved the way for stereotactic dorsomedial thalamotomy in these indications and subsequently for stereotactic surgery in epilepsy and movement disorders. Through the 1960s stereotactic psychosurgery continued to progress in silence. Due to the increased applications of stereotactic surgery in psychiatric indications, psychosurgery's renaissance was proclaimed in the early 1970s. At the same time, however, a public fearing mind control started to discredit all functional neurosurgery for mental disorders, including stereotactic procedures. In writing its own history, stereotactic neurosurgery's identity as a neuropsychiatric discipline became subsequently increasingly redefined as principally a sort of "surgical neurology," cut off from its psychiatric origin.
Topics: Chronic Pain; Epilepsy; History, 20th Century; Humans; Mental Disorders; Movement Disorders; Neurosurgery; Psychosurgery; Stereotaxic Techniques
PubMed: 32599586
DOI: 10.1159/000508167 -
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2017There is an urgent need to develop safe and effective treatments for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Several neurosurgical procedures have been... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
There is an urgent need to develop safe and effective treatments for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Several neurosurgical procedures have been developed to treat the dysfunctional brain circuits implicated in major depression.
OBJECTIVES
This review describes the most common ablative procedures used to treat major depressive disorder: anterior cingulotomy, subcaudate tractotomy, limbic leucotomy, and anterior capsulotomy. The efficacy and safety of each are discussed and compared with other current and emerging modalities, including deep brain stimulation (DBS) and MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS).
METHODS
The PubMed and MEDLINE electronic databases were used in this study, through July 2016. Keywords, including "treatment resistant depression," and "ablative neurosurgery," etc. were used to generate reference hits.
RESULTS
Approximately a third to half of patients who underwent ablative procedures achieved a treatment response and/or remission. The efficacy and safety profiles corresponding to both ablative procedures and DBS were very similar.
CONCLUSIONS
The longitudinal experience with ablative procedures shows that there remains an important role for accurate, discrete lesions in disrupting affective circuitry in the treatment of TRD. New modalities, such as MRgFUS, have the potential to further improve the accuracy of ablative procedures, while enhancing safety by obviating the need for open brain surgery.
Topics: Brain; Catheter Ablation; Deep Brain Stimulation; Depressive Disorder, Major; Depressive Disorder, Treatment-Resistant; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Neurosurgical Procedures; Psychosurgery; Treatment Outcome
PubMed: 28723697
DOI: 10.1159/000478025 -
Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 2013Following the early studies of Moniz and Lima, psychosurgery had considerable scientific credibility until the advent of modern antipsychotics in the mid 1950s....
Following the early studies of Moniz and Lima, psychosurgery had considerable scientific credibility until the advent of modern antipsychotics in the mid 1950s. Thereafter, psychosurgery was almost abandoned in large medical centers as a common treatment for schizophrenia, although is still used for some affective and anxiety disorders. We reviewed relevant papers cited in the Medline/Index Medicus, Cochrane, and Scielo databases from 1930 to 2012. In our review of the literature, we show from recent studies that there are still many patients with schizophrenia who have serious deficits even after being treated with current noninvasive therapies. The value of psychosurgery remains controversial. There are no data available to support the use of stereotactic procedures for schizophrenia. Well designed controlled trials are needed to establish the effectiveness of psychosurgery in patients with schizophrenia.
PubMed: 23723702
DOI: 10.2147/NDT.S35823 -
Mayo Clinic Proceedings Jun 2009Despite the premature and somewhat infamous rise and fall of psychosurgery in the mid-20th century, the current era of functional neuromodulation proffers immense... (Review)
Review
Despite the premature and somewhat infamous rise and fall of psychosurgery in the mid-20th century, the current era of functional neuromodulation proffers immense opportunity for surgical intervention in treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders. On the basis of recent successes with novel, focused, less invasive, and reversible treatment strategies for movement disorders, several therapeutic trials have been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in treatment-resistant depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and Tourette syndrome. The many anatomic targets for these psychiatric disorders are indicative of both the system-wide effects of DBS and the network-level dysfunction mediating the emotional and cognitive disturbances. To gain insight into the application of neuromodulation therapies and their further advancement, we must elucidate neuroanatomic networks involved in refractory psychiatric illness, the neurophysiological anomalies that contribute to disordered information processing therein, and the local and system-wide modulatory effects of DBS. This review discusses the history of psychosurgical procedures, recent DBS clinical data, current anatomic models of psychopathology, and possible therapeutic mechanisms of action of DBS neuromodulation. Our search criteria for PubMed included combinations of the following terms: neuromodulation, DBS, depression, OCD, Tourette syndrome, mechanism of action, and history. Dates were not restricted. As clinical and basic scientific investigations probe the neuromodulatory effects of DBS in the treatment of refractory neuropsychiatric illness, our knowledge of these disorders and our potential to treat them are rapidly expanding. Indeed, this modern era of neuromodulation may provide the key that unlocks many of the mysteries pertaining to the biological basis of disordered emotional neurocircuitry.
Topics: Deep Brain Stimulation; Humans; Mental Disorders; Nerve Net; Neurosurgical Procedures; Psychosurgery
PubMed: 19483169
DOI: 10.4065/84.6.522 -
Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2022Serendipity and observations have a noble tradition in medicine, including neurology, and are responsible for many medical treatments (carbamazepine for tic douloureux,... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Serendipity and observations have a noble tradition in medicine, including neurology, and are responsible for many medical treatments (carbamazepine for tic douloureux, amantadine for Parkinson's disease, gabapentin for restless legs…). We aimed at examining the contribution of serendipity and observations to functional neurosurgery. Scholarly publications relevant to the history of functional neurosurgery for movement and psychiatric disorders were reviewed, starting from the pre-stereotactic era. The documents were scrutinized with respect to indications for surgery, surgical methods, and brain targets, in view of determining whether serendipitous discoveries and other observations contributed to various functional neurosurgical procedures.
SUMMARY
James Parkinson's observation that tremors disappeared in the arm of a person with shaking palsy after a hemiparetic stroke encouraged neurosurgeons in the first half of the 20th century to perform ablative procedures on central motor pathways. Following a lobotomy performed by Browder that extended too far medially in a psychiatric patient with coexisting Parkinson's disease (PD), it was noted that the Parkinsonian signs improved. This encouraged Russel Meyers to carry out open surgery on the caudate nucleus and basal ganglia in PD. Cooper introduced ligation of the anterior choroidal artery as a treatment for PD following a surgical accident during a pedunculotomy. Cooper later started to perform stereotactic surgery on the ventrolateral thalamus following the pathological finding that an intended pallidal lesion had in fact targeted the thalamus. Leksell discovered the ideal location of a pallidal lesion being in the posteroventral area empirically, long before the advent of the basal ganglia model of PD. Modern Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) that started in the thalamus for tremor was the result of an observation by Benabid that intraoperative high-frequency stimulation during a thalamotomy reduced tremor. Both the discoveries of the anterior limbic subthalamic nucleus as a DBS target for OCD and the medial forebrain bundle as a DBS target for depression occurred by chance. Hamani and Lozano observed memory flashbacks in a patient who was undergoing DBS for obesity, which led to the discovery of the fornix as a potential DBS target for Alzheimer's disease.
KEY MESSAGES
In the history of functional neurosurgery, serendipity and observations have resulted in discoveries of several procedures, brain targets for lesioning or DBS as well as new clinical surgical indications. In this era of neuromodulation, this technology should be exquisite in allowing potential serendipitous discoveries, provided that clinicians remain both observant and prepared.
Topics: Deep Brain Stimulation; History, 20th Century; Humans; Neurosurgery; Observation; Parkinson Disease; Psychosurgery; Stroke; Tremor
PubMed: 35882210
DOI: 10.1159/000525794 -
Neurology India 2023Psychiatric disorders are the hidden pandemic of the current century. Despite major advances in medical management, the options for treatment are still limited.... (Review)
Review
Psychiatric disorders are the hidden pandemic of the current century. Despite major advances in medical management, the options for treatment are still limited. Neurosurgical intervention is effective for certain refractory psychiatric illnesses and the options range from stimulation surgeries to precise disconnection procedures influencing the neuronal network. Literature regarding stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is now enriched with successful treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder, major depression disorder, and anorexia nervosa. These procedures by reducing compulsions, obsessions, depression, and anxiety, improve substantially the quality of life for patients with a good safety profile. It is a valid treatment alternative for a selected group of patients who otherwise have no therapeutic options for whom the neurosurgical intervention is the only hope. It is also cost effective and highly reproducible among specialists. These procedures are adjuvant to the medical and behavioural treatment of psychiatric disorders. In this study the Contemporary role of Stereotactic radiosurgery is reviewed starting with relevant history of psychosurgery followed by individual psychiatric disorders.
Topics: Humans; Radiosurgery; Quality of Life; Psychosurgery; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Neurosurgical Procedures
PubMed: 37026332
DOI: 10.4103/0028-3886.373648 -
Epilepsia May 2021Patients undergoing frontal lobectomy demonstrate lower seizure-freedom rates than patients undergoing temporal lobectomy and several other resective interventions. We...
OBJECTIVE
Patients undergoing frontal lobectomy demonstrate lower seizure-freedom rates than patients undergoing temporal lobectomy and several other resective interventions. We attempted to utilize automated preoperative quantitative analysis of focal and global cortical volume loss to develop predictive volumetric indicators of seizure outcome after frontal lobectomy.
METHODS
Ninety patients who underwent frontal lobectomy were stratified based on seizure freedom at a mean follow-up time of 3.5 (standard deviation [SD] 2.5) years. Automated quantitative analysis of cortical volume loss organized by distinct brain region and laterality was performed on preoperative T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies. Univariate statistical analysis was used to select potential predictors of seizure freedom. Backward variable selection and multivariate logistical regression were used to develop models to predict seizure freedom.
RESULTS
Forty-eight of 90 (53.3%) patients were seizure-free at the last follow-up. Several frontal and extrafrontal brain regions demonstrated statistically significant differences in both volumetric cortical volume loss and volumetric asymmetry between the left and right sides in the seizure-free and non-seizure-free cohorts. A final multivariate logistic model utilizing only preoperative quantitative MRI data to predict seizure outcome was developed with a c-statistic of 0.846. Using both preoperative quantitative MRI data and previously validated clinical predictors of seizure outcomes, we developed a model with a c-statistic of 0.897.
SIGNIFICANCE
This study demonstrates that preoperative cortical volume loss in both frontal and extrafrontal regions can be predictive of seizure outcome after frontal lobectomy, and models can be developed with excellent predictive capabilities using preoperative MRI data. Automated quantitative MRI analysis can be quickly and reliably performed in patients with frontal lobe epilepsy, and further studies may be developed for integration into preoperative risk stratification.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Cerebral Cortex; Child; Child, Preschool; Epilepsy, Frontal Lobe; Female; Humans; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Neuroimaging; Psychosurgery; Treatment Outcome; Young Adult
PubMed: 33756031
DOI: 10.1111/epi.16877