(We know, horribly, what happens when the frontal lobe is impaired because of the controversial lobotomy surgeries practiced in the 1950s and 1960s. One such method, the “ice pick” lobotomy, made infamous by Rosemary Kennedy, was a procedure in which a doctor would peel back the patient’s eyelid, insert a metal spike above the eyeball until it hit the top of the orbit, and then tap, tap, tap into the brain for several minutes. This imprecise procedure severed several frontal lobe connections, yielding results ranging from dulled emotions to childish behaviors.
