Psychosurgery
Brain surgery to treat some severe, persistent, and debilitating psychological disorder or severe chronic pain.
Egas Moniz
Developed the first experimental brain surgery for human patients to treat severe phobias, anxiety, and obsessions. His technique, the lobotomy, involved surgeons severing the neural connections between the frontal lobes and the deeper brain centers involved in emotion. Eventually, it became apparent that this treatment left patients in a severely deteriorated condition.
Modern psychosurgery procedures result in less intellectual impairment.