Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T13:21:10.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effect of Prefrontal Leucotomy on the Psychogalvanic Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

W. Ross Ashby  and
M. Bassett
W. Ross Ashby
Affiliation:
From Barnwood House, Gloucester, and the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol
M. Bassett
Affiliation:
From Barnwood House, Gloucester, and the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Though it is now generally accepted that prefrontal leucotomy has an effect on the subject's behaviour, its mode of action and the intermediate stages of its effect are still obscure. Some evidence, which has been sufficiently reviewed elsewhere (Meyer and McLardy, 1949; Fleming, 1944), suggests that the operation acts by lessening emotional drive: the retrograde degeneration which usually occurs in the dorso-medial and anterior thalamic nuclei points to this. Clinically, however, the belief rests on little more than impressions. In order to obtain more objective evidence, we have used the psychogalvanic response, not because it measures emotional change with fidelity, but because it is one of the few objective tests available. Though its precise relation to emotional change is still not clear, that it does have some relation has been demonstrated repeatedly. We have therefore attempted to compare the sizes of the response before and after the operation.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 96 , Issue 403 , April 1950 , pp. 458 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1950 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bolton, B., Carmichael, E. A., and Stirrup, G. J. (1936), J. Physiol., 86, 63 Google Scholar
Carmichael, E. A., Honeyman, W. M., Kolb, L. C., and Stewart, W. K. (1941), J. Physiol., 99, 329.Google Scholar
Darrow, C. W. (1943), Physiol. Rev., 23, 1.Google Scholar
Ezekiel, M. (1930), Methods of correlation analysis. New York.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. (1935), The Design of Experiments. London.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. and Yates, F. (1938), Statistical Tables. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Fleming, G. W. T. H. (1944). J. Ment. Sci., 90, 486.Google Scholar
Forbes, T. W. (1936), Am. J. Physiol., 117, 187.Google Scholar
Freeman, W., and Watts, J. W. (1942), Psychosurgery. Baltimore.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilliat, R. W. (1948), J. Physiol., 107, 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goadby, K. W., and Goadby, H. K. (1936), J. Physiol., 86, 11 P.Google Scholar
Goadby, K. W., and Goadby, H. K. (1949), J. Physiol., 109, 177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golla, F. L. (1921), Lancet, 201, 215.Google Scholar
Kaye, G. W. C., and Laby, T. H. (1942), Physical and Chemical Constants. London. Langworthy, O. R., and Richter, C. P. (1930), Brain, 53, 178.Google Scholar
Levin, P. M. (1936), J. Comp. Neurol., 63, 369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, A., and McLardy, T. (1949), J. Ment. Sci., 95, 403.Google Scholar
Richter, C. P. (1929), Johns Hopkins Hosp. Bull., 45, 56.Google Scholar
Schwartz, H. G. (1937), Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 38, 308.Google Scholar
Wang, G. H., and Lu, T. W. (1930), Chi. J. Physiol., 4, 303.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.