Lobectomies have little to do with these lobotomies, beside the fact that you remove brain tissue. Lobectomies applied to patients with a single epileptic focu

Lobectomies have little to do with these lobotomies, beside the fact that you remove brain tissue. Lobectomies applied to patients with a single epileptic focus (trigger zone), and they are narrowly targeted. The focus often lies in the basal portion of the temporal lobe, near the hippocampus, which is involved in long term memory consolidation. The role of the hippocampus was actually discovered after a bilateral temporal lobectomy, when the procedure was still in its infancy. The patient woke up with complete, irreversible anterograde amnesia. The unilateral procedure is safe, though, and is still practiced nowadays.