A surgical operation in which an incision is made into the brain tissue for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.
From Greek enkephalos (brain) + -tomy (surgical incision, from temnein to cut). This medical term emerged in the 19th century when neurosurgery began developing as a specialized field.
Encephalotomy is an ancestor of modern procedures like deep brain stimulation—early surgeons had to actually cut into the brain to treat conditions like epilepsy, and this brutal technique sometimes actually worked, which encouraged development of safer methods.
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