 Mummraa 2002-10-27 . chapter 3 Some information on the brain, since you requested it. :)
First, the brain itself wouldn't need to be numbed for the surgery, since brains are nerveless. You can actually perform minor brain-surgery on someone while they're conscious, and they don't feel pain. Only the surrounding tissue (on the part of the skull they cut through) needs to be numbed.
Also, the parts of the brain responsible for emotion aren't located on the cortex (the brain's outermost layer), they're buried deeper, in the limbic system. Structures such as the amygdala and hippcampus are responsible for certain emotions; removing parts of those can make an animal (or, presumably, a person) more docile. |