Rethinking the neurosurgical approach to brain disorders from the network neuroscience perspective

In 1947,an original report describing the use of stereotactic-dri-ven lesioning of the human brain triggered the onset of the func-tional neurosurgery era;during the 1950s,this lesioning approach began to be applied to the treatment of patients suffering from refractory epilepsy and movement disorders(Text S1 online).Concurrently,therapeutic alterations in brain activity were mainly achieved through focal interventions in anatomical brain struc-tures thought to cause pathological clinical states.However,these focal surgical interventions were primarily based on a limited understanding of how pathological changes in those brain struc-tures could explain the patient's symptoms,since these symptoms usually resulted from a combination of effects generated by multi-ple brain regions.Furthermore,this focal surgical strategy could not precisely predict the effectiveness of the treatment on an indi-vidual basis,i.e.,from patient to patient.