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Following the rise and fall of lobotomy, a majority of U.S. states took legislative aim at psychosurgical procedures. This article canvasses, organizes, and analyzes the existing body of United States statutes and regulations mentioning psychosurgery. Many states regulate psychosurgery without defining the term; existing definitions are imprecise, but many would arguably apply to contemporary procedures like deep brain stimulation. Common to many states are restrictions on surrogate consent to psychosurgery, codifications of patients' consent or refusal rights, and situation-specific bans on the practice targeting certain contexts of vulnerability. Many states have only a handful of scattered laws bearing on psychosurgery, but a few have wide-ranging and well-integrated regulatory regimes. In reviewing these laws we perceive much room for harmonization and modernization. Greater consistency in protecting vulnerable persons from troubling uses of psychosurgery is achievable even alongside an effort to remove undue legal obstacles impeding patient access to potentially therapeutic procedures. Our hope in surveying current psychosurgery law is to inaugurate a conversation on how best to shape its future.

Neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders (NPD), also sometimes referred to as psychosurgery, is rapidly evolving, with new techniques and indications being investigated actively. Many within the field have suggested that some form of guidelines or regulations are needed to help ensure that a promising field develops safely. Multiple countries have enacted specific laws regulating NPD. This article reviews NPD-specific laws drawn from North and South America, Asia and Europe, in order to identify the typical form and contents of these laws and to set the groundwork for the design of an optimal regulation for the field. Key challenges for this design that are revealed by the review are how to define the scope of the law (what should be regulated), what types of regulations are required (eligibility criteria, approval procedures, data collection, and oversight mechanisms), and how to approach international harmonization given the potential migration of researchers and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]