When used to treat craniofacial pain, CT-guided trigeminal tractotomy-nucleotomy (TR-NC) is usually performed with local anesthesia. Unfortunately, local anesthesia is insufficient for patients with such severe pain that they cannot tolerate the required head positioning while awake. This study aimed to contextualize previous findings associated with TR-NC performed under general anesthesia. The authors examined clinical and operative factors that could impact postoperative pain outcomes.
This is a retrospective single-institution cohort study of patients who underwent a percutaneous CT-guided TR-NC under general anesthesia at a single institution between 2012 and 2019. Outcome data were analyzed.
Twenty-five patients underwent CT-guided TR-NC procedures under general anesthesia; 23 met the inclusion criteria and underwent a total of 31 procedures. The procedure success rate was 74% (23/31). Approximately 50% and 40% of procedures provided pain relief for at least 6 and 12 months, respectively. The median duration of pain relief was 153 days. Adverse events, all minor and transient, occurred following 6/31 (19%) of procedures. Patients with a body mass index > 25 were less likely to experience a successful TR-NC (p = 0.045). Higher electrode ablation temperatures (p = 0.033) and more medial entry trajectories relative to the midsagittal plane (p = 0.029) characterized successful procedures.
These results suggest that CT-guided TR-NC performed under general anesthesia is safe and effective. Postoperative outcomes were found to be associated with a number of clinical and operative factors. Such associations should be further explored and evaluated in the context of future, better-powered analyses.

Making lesions in the brain to relieve the distress of mental illness has had a checkered career due to a mixture of misuse and also caution about making permanent lesions in the brain where there was no physical abnormality. However, over the last 10 years a more flexible approach has developed. The method is still in its infancy and very little used. However, GKNS has been shown to be useful for OCD and also some cases of sever anxiety. It has been attempted for depression and anorexia nervosa but at present its role for these conditions remains to be determined.

OBJECTIVE: A definition of free will is the ability to select for or against a course of action to fulfill a desire, without extrinsic or intrinsic constraints that compel the choice. Free will has been linked to the evolutionary development of flexible decision making. In order to develop flexibility in thoughts and behavioral responses, learning mechanisms have evolved as a modification of reflexive behavioral strategies. The ultimate goal of the brain is to reduce uncertainty inherently present in a changing environment. A way to reduce the uncertainty, which is encoded by the rostral anterior cingulate, is to make multiple predictions about the environment which are updated in parallel by sensory inputs. The prediction/behavioral strategy that fits the sensory input best is then selected, becomes the next percept/behavioral strategy, and is stored as a basis for future predictions. Acceptance of predictions (positive feedback) is mediated via the accumbens, and switching to other predictions by the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (negative feedback). Maintenance of a prediction is encoded by the pregenual ACC. Different cingulate territories are involved in rejection, acceptance and maintenance of predictions. Free will is known to be decreased in multiple psychopathologies, including obsessive compulsive disorder and addictions.
METHODS: In modern psychosurgery three target structures exist for obsessive compulsive disorder and addiction: the dorsal ACC, the nucleus accumbens, and/or the anterior limb of the internal capsula. Research in all three areas reports favorable results with acceptable side effects. Psychosurgical interventions seem to exert their effect by a common final common pathway mediated via the pregenual ACC.
CONCLUSIONS: Successful neuromodulation increases the capacity to choose from different options for the affected individual, as well as inhibiting unwanted options, therefore increasing free will and free won\'t.

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