Much information has been garnered about the psychological and behavioral changes following surgery of the frontal lobes. However, it is rather difficult to make generalizations from this literature because of the differences in the material and contradictions in the conclusions drawn therefrom. There is agreement on a number of points. A certain amount of impairment of intelligence, and especially of abstract thinking, appears to be common. Above all, it seems clear that ablations of anatomically corresponding areas need not produce similar changes from patient to patient. The localization and extent of the structural damage alone is not sufficient to explain the resulting behavioral change. The patient's personality plays a paramount role and certainly has to be taken into consideration in order to understand the changes resulting from frontal lobe operation.
Patients usually selected for lobotomy are psychotics of comparatively long standing, or elderly people who hope for relief from intractable