Cases

• Morgan’s Canon - any observation that can be interpreted in so many different ways provides little support for any one interpretation. When there are several possible interpretations for a behavioral observation, the rule is to give precedence to the simplest one.
• José Delgado demonstrated to a group of newspaper reporters a remarkable new procedure for controlling aggression.
• Dr. Egas Moniz - was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the development of prefrontal lobotomy
• prefrontal lobotomy - a surgical procedure in which the connections between the prefrontal lobes and the rest of the brain are cut as a treatment for mental illness.
• prefrontal lobes - the large areas, left and right, at the very front of the brain
• Moniz’s discovery was based on the report that two chimpanzees that frequently became upset when they made errors during the performance of a food-rewarded task, did not do so following the creation of a large bilateral lesion (an area of damage to both sides of the brain) of their prefrontal lobes.
• Moniz convinced neurosurgeon Almeida Lima to operate on a series of psychiatric patients. - Lima cut out six large cores of prefrontal tissue with a surgical device called a leucotome.
• transorbital lobotomy - developed in Italy and then popularized in the United States by Walter Freeman in the late 1940s. - inserting an ice pick-like device under the eyelid, driving it through the orbit (the eye socket) with a few taps of a mallet, and pushing it into the prefrontal lobes, where it was waved back and forth to sever the connections between the prefrontal lobes and the rest of the brain
• Moniz displayed a lack of appreciation for the diversity of brain and behavior, both within and between species
• A second major weakness in the scientific case for prefrontal lobotomy was the failure of Moniz and others to carefully evaluate the consequences of the surgery in the first patients to undergo the operation.
• The early reports that the operation was therapeutically effective were based on the impressions of the individuals who were the least objective—the physicians who had prescribed the surgery and their colleagues.
• Little effort was made to evaluate more important aspects of the patients’ psychological adjustment or to document the existence of adverse side effects.
• Eventually, it became clear that prefrontal lobotomies are of little therapeutic benefit and that they can produce a wide range of undesirable side effects, such as socially inappropriate behavior, lack of foresight, emotional unresponsiveness, epilepsy, and urinary incontinence.