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    Psychosurgery: Year 11 GCSE Psychology Key Topic 8: Aggression

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    Faisal Ahmed
    Matthew has a history of severe and uncontrollable seizures since age 11 caused by encephalitis, an infection of the brain. The infection caused scarring and abnormal electrical discharges in his brain that produce seizures, during which he yells, grimaces, and runs about violently. If someone is in his path, he will push them out of the way. Surgery was performed on structures in Matthew's brain called the amygdala, which are often involved in seizures and violent behavior, but it provided no lasting benefit in reducing his seizures or aggression. Due to brain damage from his condition, Matthew lacks normal inhibitory behavior and control over his outbursts of aggression, both during seizures and outside of seizures.

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    Psychosurgery: Year 11 GCSE Psychology Key Topic 8: Aggression

    Uploaded by

    Faisal Ahmed
    1K views2 pages
    Matthew has a history of severe and uncontrollable seizures since age 11 caused by encephalitis, an infection of the brain. The infection caused scarring and abnormal electrical discharges in his brain that produce seizures, during which he yells, grimaces, and runs about violently. If someone is in his path, he will push them out of the way. Surgery was performed on structures in Matthew's brain called the amygdala, which are often involved in seizures and violent behavior, but it provided no lasting benefit in reducing his seizures or aggression. Due to brain damage from his condition, Matthew lacks normal inhibitory behavior and control over his outbursts of aggression, both during seizures and outside of seizures.

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    Matthew has a history of severe and uncontrollable seizures since age 11 caused by encephalitis, an infection of the brain. The infection caused scarring and abnormal electrical discharges in his brain that produce seizures, during which he yells, grimaces, and runs about violently. If someone is in his path, he will push them out of the way. Surgery was performed on structures in Matthew's brain called the amygdala, which are often involved in seizures and violent behavior, but it provided no lasting benefit in reducing his seizures or aggression. Due to brain damage from his condition, Matthew lacks normal inhibitory behavior and control over his outbursts of aggression, both during seizures and outside of seizures.

    Copyright:

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    1K views2 pages

    Psychosurgery: Year 11 GCSE Psychology Key Topic 8: Aggression

    Uploaded by

    Faisal Ahmed
    Matthew has a history of severe and uncontrollable seizures since age 11 caused by encephalitis, an infection of the brain. The infection caused scarring and abnormal electrical discharges in his brain that produce seizures, during which he yells, grimaces, and runs about violently. If someone is in his path, he will push them out of the way. Surgery was performed on structures in Matthew's brain called the amygdala, which are often involved in seizures and violent behavior, but it provided no lasting benefit in reducing his seizures or aggression. Due to brain damage from his condition, Matthew lacks normal inhibitory behavior and control over his outbursts of aggression, both during seizures and outside of seizures.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Year 11 GCSE Psychology

    Key Topic 8: Aggression

    Psychosurgery
    A method to cure psychological disorders through brain surgery. One of the more salient examples of psychosurgery (and one that's seen most often in movies) was the use of prefrontal lobotomies often done in the 1940s and 1950s to reduce aggressive behavior in people with mental illnesses. Psychosurgery has a long history and may have started as far back as 40,000 years ago when it was done to get rid of demons or the "stone of madness" (it was believed that there was some little part of the brain responsible for mental illness so if you just cut that part out you cured the patient). In 1894 the first "rational" (or scientific) psychosurgery was conducted by a Swiss surgeon. Today psychosurgery is still done but it's radically different; today it involves lasers, very precise work on specific areas of the brain, and can be done without opening the skull.
    Matthew is a 24 year old, right-handed man who has had severe and uncontrollable seizures since age 11. The cause of the seizures is encephalitis, which is an infection (presumed viral) of the brain. This infection produced scarring which resulted in spontaneously recurrent abnormal electrical discharges. When the electrical discharges build up to a certain level he will have seizures. During his seizures, he will have an aura [warning] of an unpleasant emotion, he will become confused, he will yell, grimace, turn his [head] side to side and will run about. I have personally observed several of these episodes. He appears very frightening to others during the episodes. On one occasion we had a laboratory technician hide behind the door for many minutes after Matthew slammed into the door during a seizure. If someone is in his path, he will stare at them, then run into them or push them violently out of the way. We monitored him in our critical care neurology unit with videoelectroencephalography recordings in June of 1986. During that time we could observe his typical range episodes, and correlate them with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. His seizures have occurred as often as 10 times a day.

    Year 11 GCSE Psychology

    Key Topic 8: Aggression

    On October 5, 1987, Matthew had surgery on the right side of his brain, and on November 24, 1987, on the left side of his brain in a structure called the amygdala. This is a structure that is often involved in seizures and in manifestations of violent behaviour. Unfortunately, the procedure was of no lasting benefit to Matthew. I believe that Matthew has sufficient brain injury that he cannot control his outbursts of aggression. Some of these are explicitly because of seizures [and] completely beyond his control. Others are not related to seizures, but occur because he has brain damage, delusional thinking, and lacks the normal inhibitory behavior that people must exert in society. Regrettably, this is likely to be a continuing condition with Matthew. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether violence is part of a seizure, or whether it is acting out of "bad temper. " In Matthew's case, I think all these are [beyond his control].

    Now, evaluate this approach.

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