Here’s an interesting article about hypersexual behavior often brought about by neurosurgery performed on epilepsy patients. When a certain part of the brain is removed, such patients become — as James Brown might’ve said — sex machines. For example:

In another case, an epileptic woman underwent an unsuccessful left temporal lobectomy to help stop debilitating seizures. Klüver-Bucy symptoms, including hypersexuality, emerged following the surgery. She began masturbating in public and aggressively soliciting her family members and neighbors for sex.

It’s a shame the author doesn’t mention the woman’s address; I’d love to see if there are any vacancies in her neighborhood! I think I could do a thing or two to help satisfy those urges.

Er, I mean, what a terrible ordeal for both her and her family.

There is a serious and thought-provoking point made at the end of the article. If people’s behaviors are tied to their brain structure? What is free will?

If a “good” person’s brain can be rendered morally disabled by an invasive tumor or an epileptic fuse-shortage, subsequently causing them to do very bad deeds, then isn’t it rather hypocritical to assume that a “bad” person without brain injury—whose brain is anatomically organized by epigenetics (the complex interplay between genes and experiences)—has any more free will than the neuroclinical case? After all, perhaps it’s just a matter of timing: The “good” are born with brains that can “go bad,” whereas the “bad” are hogtied by a morally disabled neural architecture from the very start.