The effectiveness and tolerability of treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
and depression have seen impressive improvements over past decades. Nonetheless,
some patients with either disorder continue to manifest severe chronic illness that is
refractory to treatment. For them, modern neurosurgical procedures remain a therapeutic
option. Psychiatric neurosurgery remains controversial, largely because indiscriminate use
of prefrontal lobotomy in the middle of the twentieth century frequently produced significant …