Lobotomy anyone?

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/inventing_the_lobotomy.php

Good blog

"flat effect" ... less reaction emotionally to things than you would expect.

I know there's at least one autobiography written by a guy who was lobotomized as a teenager. I don't remember the title, but it might be worth poking around Amazon to find out. Of course, a teenager's brain is probably a bit more plastic than an adult's, so his experience might not be typical.

Lobotomy was sold as a pacifying procedure. Flattened affect means, "displays diminished emotional range." My guess is that "lack of social normalcy," means, "stares at you blankly if you tell them their grandmother died," not, "feels no compunction about hitting someone." My suspicion is that it would be easier to get a lobotomy victim not to do something than to do something. In other words, getting them to beat someone up? Difficult. Getting them not to go to the police when you beat someone up? Possibly a lot simpler.

Of course, the latter scenario is an easier sell for people without severe brain damage, especially if you can come up with a nice, smooth reason why you beating someone else is not their problem.

Izunya

WackAMole said:

Do you think the person could be easily scared into doing something. In other words, if you subject a lobotomized person to abuse/threaten them, is it going to have any impact on whether or not they do what you want them to do?

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I honestly have no idea. For that kind of thing, I think you might have to track down the professional literature on the subject.

If you need more stuff like "flattened affect" defined, I can do that. But I'm not a psychologist.

Izunya

From the mouth of a person who had one:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080

I heard this on NPR about three years ago. It was very interesting and very powerful. You might be able to track the guy down and talk with him directly.

Honestly, I know almost nothing about this, just guessing, but if 'flat effect' is diminished emotional reaction, then I'd think that they would be less likely to respond to scaring/threats. More of a general disinterest, depending on the level of the percieved danger.

WackAMole said:

Do you think the person could be easily scared into doing something. In other words, if you subject a lobotomized person to abuse/threaten them, is it going to have any impact on whether or not they do what you want them to do?

Click to expand...

No. You might do something that would be scary otherwise, because you won't be afraid to.

The best fictional description I've seen of what it's like is in an SF novel by Watts called Blindsight.

You can download it from Feedbooks, for free.

The lobotomy essentially stops the communication between the two lobes of the brain--and generally, the analytic rational dominates.

Flat affect means no emotional reaction. None. It's . . . it's the equivalent of someone who is deaf. They really can't hear, no matter how loudly you talk.

"Flat affect" means they really can't respond emotionally, or express it, no matter how they might feel in the disconnected other lobe. They can't empathize in the ordinary way either.

http://soundportraits.org/on-air/my_lobotomy/

WackAMole said:

Thanks a ton! Thats the info i was lookin for!

So basically they can still "feel" umm in an inward perspective in normal ways they just completely lack the ability to respond?

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I just edited my post; go read it again.

It's like emotion is a foreign language that they neither feel nor understand in others, and have to analyze it.

WARNING: HUGE POST!

Agh, I had just written a big post about lobotomies and how they affect the brain and personality and whatnot, and then I lost it somehow. Dammit!

Anyway, Medievalist, I think the type of lobotomy you're describing is called a 'split-brain lobotomy', which is used to treat severe cases of epilepsy, as in patients who have hundreds of seizures a day, however, I don't think it's the kind of lobotomy WackAMole is thinking of, which would be a frontal lobotomy, where the frontal lobe is severed from the rest of the brain, which is the one that causes the 'flat effect' that has been mentioned.

While both procedures are extreme, generally neither one actually reduces the IQ of the patient, therefore their functional intelligence would remain much the same, and in the case of split-brain patients, the personality generally isn't affected at all either - though in fact, if you want to get really technical, the split-brain procedure isn't a lobotomy at all, because the two halves aren't completely severed, but I digress.

An interesting side effect of the split brain procedure though, if you're interested, is that because the two sides of the brain no longer have any way to communicate, the brain as a whole treats the left and right sides of the body as separate physical entities - as in the left side of the body is totally separate to the right side to the extent that it's not possible for the patient to be aware of one side of the body in relation to the other.

For example, imagine for a moment that you're eating a steak, and someone asks you to cut off a piece with your eyes closed - pretty simple, right? Well, a split brain patient is physically unable to cut that steak without looking at his hands the whole time. If he closes his eyes, he has no idea where the right hand, holding the knife, is and what it's doing, in relation to where the left hand, with the fork is, and what that's doing.

Moving on to the frontal lobotomy, as I mentioned earlier, it generally doesn't affect the level of intelligence of the patient, but it does cause a heap of other problems - while the IQ stays the same, mental flexibility is impaired, so their ability to process thoughts is messed up. It doesn't affect memory too badly, though it can affect the way long term memories are processed and stored, but I think that would be getting a bit too esoteric for your story, as I assume it's not a neuro textbook.

The main damage the frontal lobotomy causes is related to the fact that that part of the brain is responsible for recognizing the consequences of your actions, so damage to it causes you to lose your ability to suppress urges and responses that may be socially unacceptable - it's common for patients with this type of damage to develop weird sexual fetishes and uncontrollable sexual urges.

With regard to the 'flat effect', what most people have said is correct - it's a diminished ability to understand other peoples emotions, and to feel them for yourself. They're not gone completely, they just tend to be less strong.

This is turning into quite the novel - my husband is a neuropsych grad student, so I know more than I should about this stuff by proxy. What I'm trying to say is that the sterotype of a person having a lobotomy and becoming basically retarded is totally incorrect, though it might change their personality a bit. With regard to your character being easily manipulated, I suppose it could happen - without the social filtering of right/wrong impulses, they could end up being more suggestible, though remember, the level of intelligence stays the same, so I'm not sure how well it would work - I'm sure you could get away with it for the purposes of your story, that's what artistic license is for!

"His father remarried and, Dully says, "My stepmother hated me. I never understood why, but it was clear she'd do anything to get rid of me."

A search of Dully's records among Freeman's files archived at George Washington University turned up clues about why Freeman lobotomized him.

According to Freeman's notes, Lou Dully said she feared her stepson, whom she described as defiant and savage looking. "He doesn't react either to love or to punishment," the notes say of Howard Dully. "He objects to going to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it he says 'I don't know.' He turns the room's lights on when there is broad sunlight outside.""

Sweet Lord. That sounds like a normal child who's mom has died. Apparently, the Dr. had no reservations.
Sick. Sick. Sick.