In the field of neurosurgery, functional neurosurgery is an ancient yet emerging discipline. Prehistoric man had already started using the ring drill to exorcise demons, ghosts or to keep supernatural elements away from the mind. In Hippocratic times, Hippocrates used the ring drill to treat skull fractures, epilepsy, blindness and headaches, but they could not perform intracranial surgery due to the lack of effective anesthesia and aseptic techniques. It was only after the advent of three major inventions in the 19th century, namely anesthesia, asepsis, and brain localization, that people were able to perform intracranial surgery, and neurosurgery has since entered a free, vast, and competitive world. Taking Parkinson’s disease as an example, we review the development of functional neurosurgery. 1930s, Russel Meyer carried out open basal ganglia surgery for movement disorders, which opened a new era of neurosurgery for Parkinson’s disease. 1950s, the human stereotactic instrument was introduced, and Spiegel and others introduced the brain stereotactic technique, which made basal ganglia surgery safer and very accurate. In the 1960s, levodopa was introduced, replacing surgery, and surgery for Parkinson’s disease came to a near halt. 1980s saw a second breakthrough in brain stereotaxy, with Brown’s invention of a directional frame, which was co-aligned with CT/MRI, and with the further unraveling of the pathophysiological mysteries of Parkinson’s disease, neurosurgeons The current surgical treatment for Parkinson’s disease is either a directed pallidotomy (Gpi) or a thalamotomy (Vim), and deep brain electrical stimulation (DBS) has also “entered the common home”, and many large and medium-sized hospitals have carried out DBS for Parkinson’s disease. Also in the 20th century, the treatment of functional neurosurgery diseases such as psychosurgery, epilepsy surgery, intractable pain, and torsional spasms also made rapid progress, and the decade of the 20th century was also called the “Decade of the Brain”, thanks to the multidisciplinary support of neurophysiology, neuroimaging, neuroanesthesiology, and medical engineering. Functional neurosurgeons have been able to use these modern advances to take their academic and medical care to the next level. Although functional neurosurgery has made such great progress and is changing rapidly, most of our non-medical friends and even some neurosurgeons in primary care hospitals still know little about functional neurosurgery. What does it include? I will give a brief introduction here. Definition of functional neurosurgery: The branch of medicine that uses surgical methods to correct abnormalities in the function of the nervous system is functional neurosurgery (Functional Neurosurgery), also known as physiologic neurosurgery (Physiologic Neurosurgery), or applied neurophysiology (Applied Neurophysiology) in the early days. Neurophysiology). Surgery targets specific nerve roots, neural pathways or neuronal groups with the aim of consciously altering their pathological processes and reestablishing the normal function of neural tissue. Functional neurosurgery treatment areas: ① Movement disorders: once known as extrapyramidal diseases, are a group of diseases with movement disorders as the main clinical feature caused by lesions in the basal ganglia. Parkinson’s disease is a typical representative of this group, which also includes primary tremor, dystonia, chorea, and tic-tac-toe syndrome. Cerebral palsy can also be classified as such from the perspective of affecting motor function. Seizures are the main clinical feature of epilepsy. Seizures affect a wide range of mental, motor, sensory and vegetative nerves, and can be completely normal in the interictal period. The epilepsy can be divided into temporal lobe epilepsy, frontal lobe epilepsy, parieto-occipital lobe epilepsy, and some epilepsy syndromes depending on the anatomical location of the epileptogenic focus. Pain: It is often a symptom of the disease, and some of them can be described separately. Surgical treatment is indicated for those with chronic and intractable pain. Typical ones are herpes zoster neuralgia, phantom limb pain, amputation pain, thalamic pain, pelvic pain, abdominal pain, thoracic pain, low back pain, as well as trigeminal neuralgia and glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Facial spasm is an exception and should not be included in the category of pain except for a few patients with facial spasm accompanied by trigeminal neuralgia, but it is often discussed together because microvascular decompression surgery is as effective as the treatment of trigeminal nerve. ④Mental disorders: The history of surgical approaches to the treatment of mental disorders goes back hundreds of years, with much effort placed on the treatment of schizophrenia. The advent of chlorpromazine led to the abandonment of this highly disabling procedure, and in recent years, although advances in surgical techniques have made the threat of serious complications less and less likely, data show that the efficacy of surgery for schizophrenia is extremely limited, and the more certain indications for surgery are anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and depressive disorders.