Personal memories of the history of stereotactic neurosurgery.

This article summarizes the author's personal memories of the first 50 years of stereotactic neurosurgery. The author provides a short summary of his education and his introduction to stereotactic neurosurgery. Some great pioneers of the field who played an important role in his training, including John F. Gillingham, Jean Talairach, Guillaume Guiot, Edvard Kandel, Hirotaro Narabayashi, Irving Cooper, Henry Wycis, and Lars Leksell, are described in detail. The author then discusses his own work in the treatment of movement disorders, chronic pain, epilepsy, and intractable psychiatric disorders. For his contributions to the field, the author received the Spiegel-Wycis Medal of the World Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery in 2001.