In this festive episode Ken reads 'Manhandling the Brain', his essay on the origins of mid-20th century psychosurgery, an attempt to understand how, for over 20 years, so many people thought it such a good idea to damage the brains of the severely mentally ill and the lessons that can be learned.

Participants:

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Full text of the essay with bibliography and references are here, preceded by an essay on the early days of the EEG and more: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk/writing/

Bibliography top picks in bold)

Moniz E (1935), Tentatives operatoires dans le traitement de certaines psychoses, Masson, Paris.

Freeman W, Watts JW & Hunt T (1942) Psychosurgery: Intelligence, emotion and social behavior following prefrontal lobotomy for mental disorders. Springfield, Thomas.

Board of Control (1947), Pre-frontal Leucotomy in 1000 Cases, HMSO.

Shutts D (1982), Lobotomy: Resort to the Knife, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.

Rylander G ( 1948), Personality Analysis Before and After Frontal Lobotomy, in The Frontal Lobes , John F Fulton et al Eds., pp691-705. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore.

Vallenstein ES (1986), Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical treatments for Mental Illness, Basic Books Inc..

Pressman JD, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

El-Hai J (2005), The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, John Wiley & Sons.

Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, Messing with my Head: The shocking true story of my lobotomy, Vermilion, 2007.

Kotowicz Z (2012), Psychosurgery: the Birth of a New Scientific Paradigm, Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon.

Raz M (2013), The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery , University of Rochester Press.

Ferone G & Vincent J-D (2011), Bienvenue en Transhumanie: sur l’homme de demain, Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris.

Todes DP (2014), Ivan Pavlov: A Russian Life in Science, Oxford University Press.

Papers:

Hutton E L (1941), Early Results of Prefrontal Leucotomy, Lancet, July 5, 3-12.

Hutton E L (1942), The Investigation of Personality in Patients treated by Prefrontal Leucotomy, Journal of Mental Science, 371, 275-281.

Golla F L,(1943), The Range and Technique of Prefrontal Leucotomy, Journal of Mental Science, 89; 189-191.

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.

For comment or to share your own essay Ken can be contacted at kenb@kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Festive wax model (of Walter Freeman) by KB

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In this episode film critic/writer Matt Glasby and artist Barney Bodoano discuss their innovative book on horror movies 'The Book of Horror: The anatomy of fear in film'. After talking about their gateway into their horror obsession Matt takes us through his seven 'scare tactics', techniques used by film makers to evoke shock, dread, revulsion etc. including specifically filmic techniques such as 'dead space'. Barney talks about how he chose an evocative image to represent each film and his decision to use charcoal and chalk as his medium. Their book scores each of 37 films on each of the 7 parameters, summarises the plot and suggests similar movies. We discuss five films in some detail: Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960), the Italian classic 'Suspiria' (1977), Japanese trailblazer 'Ring' (1999), lockdown movie 'Host' (2020) and Matt's highest scoring film 'Hereditary' (2018), with a nod to a number of other movies. Lovely chat and an enjoyable book about a creepy subject.

Participants:

Matt Glasby writer, critic https://mattglasby.com/index.php

Barney Bodoano, artist and illustrator https://www.instagram.com/bbodoano?igsh=c3B4d3hsNnhrYXk1&utm_source=qr

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Their 'Book of Horror: The anatomy of fear in film' : https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-book-of-horror/matt-glasby/barney-bodoano/9781836009399

The movies we discuss: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7784604/?ref_=fn_t_1

Dario Argento's 'Suspiria' from 1977: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076786/

Hideo Nakata's 'Ring' from 1998: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868/?ref_=nm_knf_c_2

Rob Savage's 'Host' from 2020: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12749596/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_host%25202020

Ari Aster's 'Hereditary' from 2018: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7784604/

The band Barney mentions at the end, 'Crumbling Ghost':

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Sketch by KB (Barney is on the left)

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Austin Lim's book 'Horror and the Brain' uses work from the horror and science fiction genres as a way into discussing a neuroscience and a range of related stories. We discuss why on earth so many people inflict the feelings provoked by horror fiction on themselves ans talk about a range of brain structures that play a role in fear, emotion and attachment behaviour (with a diversion into love, oxytocin and prairie voles). We talk about the amygdala, insula and the pathways that include them and the systems triggered by disgust and the uncanny, moving from the real story of a mass shooting to various films and stories, including Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' and 'Us', Gondry's ' Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Brain mapper Wilder Penfield leads us into a closing horror story (real if you happen to be a mouse) about Toxoplasmosis. Great chat with an excellent communicator.

Participants:

Austin Lim, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Neuroscience, De Paul University, Chicago. https://csh.depaul.edu/faculty-staff/faculty-a-z/Pages/neuroscience/sean-austin-lim.aspx

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Austin's book 'Horror on the Brain': https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Horror-on-the-Brain/Austin-Lim/9781493084791

The 'uncanny valley': https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Horror-on-the-Brain/Austin-Lim/9781493084791

More on oxytocin: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666497621000813

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Sketch by KB.

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