Posteromedial hypothalamotomy in the treatment of violent, aggressive behaviour.

Although emotion in the human is largely modified by the frontal association areas (software) and may better be called affect, it is still very much influenced by the balance of the ergotropic and the trophotropic circuits in the prosencephalon (hardware) especially in patients with organic brain lesions. Violent, aggressive, restless behaviours or rage can be regarded as an unbalanced state of these two circuits with dominance of the ergotropic circuit. In order to restore the balance of these two circuits, small stereotactic lesions were made in the ergotropic portion of the posterior hypothalamus (posteromedial hypothalamotomy) with good results in the follow-up of 10-25 years. Postoperatively there was no disturbance in endocrine activities and growth.

Stereotactic operation in behaviour disorders. Amygdalotomy and hypothalamotomy.

After a survey of the anatomical and physiological basis of operative treatment of behaviour disorders by stereotactic lesions in the amygdala and the posterior medial hypothalamus the author describes his own experiences with 603 operations for control of conservatively untreatable aggressiveness. In 481 cases bilateral amygdalotomies and in 122 mostly secondary posteromedian hypothalamotomies have been performed. Initially excellent or moderate improvement was achieved in 76%. After a follow-up of more than three years this figure only slightly decreased to 70%. The group of patients who did not positively respond (30%) needs further study to discover the reasons for failure.