Bilateral cingulotomy is a form of psychosurgery, introduced in 1948 as an alternative to lobotomy. Today, it is mainly used in the treatment of depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the early years of the twenty-first century, it was used in Russia to treat addiction. It is also used in the treatment of chronic pain. The objective of this procedure is the severing of the supracallosal fibres of the cingulum bundle, which pass through the anterior cingulate gyrus. History Cingulotomy was introduced in the 1940s as an alternative to standard pre-frontal leucotomy/lobotomy in the hope of alleviating symptoms of mental illness whilst reducing the undesirable effects of the standard operation (personality changes, etc.). It was suggested by American physiologist John Farquhar Fulton who, at a meeting of the Society of British Neurosurgeons in 1947, said "were it feasible, cingulectomy in man would seem an appropriate place for limited leucotomy". This was derived from the hypothesis of James Papez who thought that the cingulum was a major component of an anatomic circuit believed to play a significant role in emotion. The first reports of the use of cingulotomy on psychiatric patients came from J le Beau in Paris, Hugh Cairns in Oxford, and Kenneth Livingston in Oregon. Target Bilateral cingulotomy targets the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a part of the limbic system. This system is responsible for the integration of feelings and emotion in the human cortex. It consists of the cingulate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala and the hippocampal formation. Studies in patients who were subject to bilateral cingulotomy, involving fMRI analyses, showed that the anterior cingulate cortex has a key role in cognitive control and is highly likely to be involved in the control of attentional response, whereas the dorsal part of that region of the brain was not identified to be involved in such a process, although this is still under dispute. The function of the dorsal part of the cingulate cortex was connected to the sorting out and processing of conflicting information signals. In addition, neuroimaging studies also indicated that the anterior cingulate cortex participates in the modulation of cortical regions that are of higher order, as well as sensory processing areas. These findings have also been confirmed by stereotactic microelectrode analysis of single cortical neurons in a study, which involved nine patients undergoing bilateral cingulotomy. The study investigated the effect of performing attention demanding tasks on the