Human Behavior After Extensive Bilateral Removal From the Frontal Lobes

At rare intervals chance presents to a neurosurgeon a lesion of the brain demanding treatment that would satisfy the exacting requirements of an extirpation experiment. This was true of the case we are about to record. Psychologic studies of the patient were made before, during and after an extensive bilateral frontal lobectomy, without yielding evidence of postoperative deterioration such as might have been expected from earlier examinations, and particularly from the case studied in detail by Brickner.1It becomes evident that human behavior and mental activity may be more greatly impaired by the positive action of an abnormal area of brain than by the negative effect of its complete absence,2and the case reported here presents a new opportunity for study of the functions of the frontal lobes. REPORT OF A CASEHistory. —K. M., a man aged 27, who was right handed, came to the clinic in