From trepanning to Neuralink, we’ve always been curious about operating on our brains — for better or worse.

Tens of thousands of people were lobotomized before the practice began to decline in the 1950s.

The era of lobotomies is one of the darkest chapters in medical history. Many of the period’s missteps can guide how we think about healthcare ethics today, and in the future.

In this episode of Your Brain On, we discuss:

• The origins of lobotomies, and how they became so prevalent in spite of their tragic consequences

• How evolving medical knowledge and technology led to their obsolescence

• Whether we’re about to make the same mistakes, as brain-machine interfaces like Neuralink promise a new generation of cognitive enhancement

We speak to Dr. Warren Boling about the historic context of lobotomies, how the procedure scored one of the most controversial Nobel Prize awards of all time, and what’s coming next for neurosurgical technology. Warren is a renowned neurosurgeon and director of the dept. of neurosurgery at Loma Linda University. He specializes in epilepsy surgery.

We’re also joined by ethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan, for a fascinating talk about the past, present, and future of medical ethics. Arthur is the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health in New York City.

‘Your Brain On... Lobotomies’ • SEASON 1 • EPISODE 5

LINKS

Dr. Warren Boling at Loma Linda: https://lluh.org/provider/boling-warren

Dr. Arthur Caplan at NYU: https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/arthur-l-caplan

Dr. Arthur Caplan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArthurCaplan 

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