The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 23, 1954, No. 3: Mortimer Ostow. 'A Psychoanalytic Contribution to the Study of Brain Function.'

1. The Frontal Lobes

Experimental stimulation and ablation of the premotor frontal regions has indicated that we can assign to them no specific function. Nevertheless human beings and animals deprived of them display a uniform impairment in strength and consistency of motivation. The author attempts to explain strength of motivation as a function of the ability to construct derivatives of instinctual drives and unconscious fantasies and to transfer psychic energy from these to conscious processes. Impairment of consistency of motivation he explains as a consequence of impairment of function of the device that regulates the orderly procession of fantasies so as to maintain continuity of motivation without rigidity. It therefore seems to him reasonable to assign to the premotor frontal region the functions of devising and energizing derivatives of instinctual drives and unconscious fantasies and of regulating the rate and sequence in which unconscious fantasies determine day to day behaviour. He thinks that if one accepts the formulation that neurosis or psychosis is caused by incomplete or unsuccessful repression, then one can understand that damage to the frontal lobe can relieve an individual of neurotic symptoms by depriving him of the power to form them and—what is the same thing—the power to create, express, and enjoy himself as a human being.

(Based on Author's Summary.)