Recent technological advances, however, have made bilateral cingulotomy a more precise operation.

Bilateral cingulotomy is a form of psychosurgery, introduced in 1948 as an alternative to lobotomy.

Another clinical study investigated the effect of bilateral cingulotomy for the treatment of refractory chronic pain.

Bilateral Cingulotomy targets the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a part of the limbic system.

The follow up of the patients produced contradictory results, which indicated that bilateral cingulotomy is not the optimal treatment for OCD.

These findings have also been confirmed by stereotactic microelectrode analysis of single cortical neurons in a study, which involved nine patients undergoing bilateral cingulotomy.

Thus, theoretically if bilateral cingulotomy is performed in such patient in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, better results should be obtained.

Functional MRI analyses of the anterior cingulate cortex have also led to the introduction of bilateral cingulotomy for the treatment of chronic pain.

The mild shorter postoperative complications that are most commonly related to bilateral cingulotomy are typical of head interventions and include but are not limited to nausea, vomiting, and headaches.

These techniques included William Beecher Scoville's orbital undercutting, Jean Talairach's anterior capsulotomy, and Hugh Cairn's bilateral cingulotomy.

A recent study conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed the outcome of bilateral cingulotomy in 44 patients for the treatment of OCD in the period between 1965 and 1986.

They may include anterior capsulotomy (bilateral thermal lesions of the anterior limbs of the internal capsule) or the bilateral cingulotomy (involving lesions of the anterior cingulate gyri) and might be used to treat otherwise untreatable obsessional disorders or clinical depression.