Editing Lobotomy (section)

====Neurological model====

The theoretical underpinnings of Moniz's psychosurgery were largely commensurate with the nineteenth-century ones that had informed Burckhardt's decision to excise matter from the brains of his patients. Although in his later writings, Moniz referenced both the [[neuron theory]] of [[Ramón y Cajal]] and the [[conditioned reflex]] of [[Ivan Pavlov]],{{sfn|Gross|Schäfer|2011|p=1|ps=}} in essence he simply interpreted this new neurological research in terms of the old psychological theory of [[associationism]].{{sfn|Berrios|1997|p=72|ps=}} He differed significantly from Burckhardt, however in that he did not think there was any organic pathology in the brains of the mentally ill, but rather that their neural pathways were caught in fixed and destructive circuits leading to "predominant, obsessive ideas".{{refn|Moniz wrote in 1948: 'sufferers from melancholia, for instance, are distressed by fixed and obsessive ideas&nbsp;... and live in a permanent state of anxiety caused by a fixed idea which predominates over all their lives&nbsp;... in contrast to automatic actions, these morbid ideas are deeply rooted in the synaptic complex which regulates the functioning of consciousness, stimulating it and keeping it in constant activity&nbsp;... all these considerations led me to the following conclusion: it is necessary to alter these synaptic adjustments and change the paths chosen by the impulses in their constant passage so as to modify the corresponding ideas and force thoughts along different paths&nbsp;...'<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Berrios|1997|p=74}}</ref>|group=n}}<ref>{{harvnb|Kotowicz|2005|p=99}}; {{harvnb|Gross|Schäfer|2011|p=1}}</ref> As Moniz wrote in 1936:
<blockquote>[The] mental troubles must have&nbsp;... a relation with the formation of cellulo-connective groupings, which become more or less fixed. The cellular bodies may remain altogether normal, their cylinders will not have any anatomical alterations; but their multiple liaisons, very variable in normal people, may have arrangements more or less fixed, which will have a relation with persistent ideas and deliria in certain morbid psychic states.<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Kotowicz|2005|p=88}}</ref></blockquote>

For Moniz, "to cure these patients", it was necessary to "destroy the more or less fixed arrangements of cellular connections that exist in the brain, and particularly those which are related to the frontal lobes",<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Feldman|Goodrich|2001|p=651}}</ref> thus removing their fixed pathological brain circuits. Moniz believed the brain would functionally adapt to such injury.{{sfn|Berrios|1997|p=74|ps=}} Unlike the position adopted by Burckhardt, it was [[unfalsifiable]] according to the knowledge and technology of the time as the absence of a known correlation between physical brain pathology and mental illness could not disprove his thesis.{{sfn|Kotowicz|2005|p=89|ps=}}