Imagine sitting at home all day, showing no emotion to the outside world. This is what happens to lobotomized people. Mental disorders constitute a major health problem throughout the world. They can affect people from birth or develop with age. Remedies for these disorders were not very effective until the development of different types of medications in the 20th century. Before the invention of these drugs, procedures such as lobotomies were considered an acceptable treatment for certain types of mental disorders. The invention of lobotomy was considered a medical miracle because it cured some psychiatric illnesses, but it had detrimental effects on many patients who benefited from this procedure. No one denies that by discovering psychosurgery, a temporary cure for some mental illnesses was thought to have been discovered. Prefrontal lobotomy is a surgical procedure in which the prefrontal cortex is detached from other areas of the brain (Kalat 103). During this procedure, either the prefrontal cortex is impaired or the link connecting it to the rest of the brain is broken (Kalat 103). This means that lobotomies are performed by surgeons who destroy the connection between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain, which can render the frontal lobe useless. Originally, doctors proposed lobotomies because they believed that intense emotional and cognitive disruption occurred due to atypical neural pathways in the brain (Piotrowski 1119). Psychosurgery could eventually help find new cures for some significant psychiatric illnesses, as doctors conjectured that destroying this abnormal brain tissue would help cure these illnesses (Piotrowski 1119). Doctors initially thought that the destruction... middle of paper ......logy."Antonio Egas Moniz." Gale: n. page. Science in context. Internet. May 4, 2014. .Kalat, James W. Biological psychology. 10th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Kochhar, Piya and Dave Isay. "'My Lobotomy': The Journey of Howard Dully." NPR. NPR, November 16, 2005. Web. May 7, 2014. Piotrowski, Nancy A., ed. Hearing - Parental Alienation Syndrome. Pasadena: Salem, 2010. Print. Flight. 3 of psychology and mental health. 5 flight..