A History of the Brain : From Stone Age Surgery to Modern Neuroscience

__A History of the Brain__ tells the full story of neuroscience, from antiquity to the present day. It describes how we have come to understand the biological nature of the brain, beginning in prehistoric times, and progressing to the twentieth century with the development of Modern Neuroscience. This is the first time a history of the brain has been written in a narrative way, emphasizing how our understanding of the brain and nervous system has developed over time, with the development of the disciplines of anatomy, pharmacology, physiology, psychology and neurosurgery. The book covers: * beliefs about the brain in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome * the Medieval period, Renaissance and Enlightenment * the nineteenth century * the most important advances in the twentieth century and future directions in neuroscience. The discoveries leading to the development of modern neuroscience gave rise to one of the most exciting and fascinating stories in the whole of science. Written for readers with no prior knowledge of the brain or history, the book will delight students, and will also be of great interest to researchers and lecturers with an interest in understanding how we have arrived at our present knowledge of the brain. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Preface 12 Acknowledgements 15 1 Head or heart? The ancient search for the soul 16 The emergence of the human mind 17 Stone Age surgery: trepanation 19 The earliest reference to a brain disorder: epilepsy 23 The brain in ancient Egypt 24 The first word for brain 25 The causes of behaviour in Homeric times 26 The brain as an organ of sensation: Alcmaeon of Crotona 27 Hippocrates and the brain 28 Plato appears to confirm the importance of the brain 31 Aristotle’s alternative view of the psyche 33 Aristotle and the brain 35 2 The discovery of the nervous system 42 A centre of academic excellence: Alexandria 43 Herophilus of Chalcedon 44 The discovery of the nervous system 46 Erasistratus of Chios 47 The founder of experimental physiology: Galen of Pergamon 48 Galen’s account of the brain 50 Galen’s account of the cranial and spinal nerves 52 Galen and the squealing pig 54 Galen’s account of the spinal cord 56 The role of psychic pneuma in nervous function 56 The first experiments on the brain 58 Galen’s great legacy 59 3 From late antiquity to the Renaissance: the Cell Doctrine 63 The origins of the Cell Doctrine 64 The Cell Doctrine in the West 66 The rise of scholasticism and later accounts of the Cell Doctrine 67 The earliest illustration of the brain 68 Other early illustrations of the brain 73 Mondino de Luzzi: the restorer of anatomy 76 Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Man 79 Leonardo’s search for the soul 80 Visualising the ventricles 84 The first printed anatomical text with illustrations 85 The reawakening: Andreas Vesalius 87 De humani corporis Fabrica 88 The Fabrica’s depiction of the brain 91 The impact of the Fabrica 93 4 Searching for the ghost in the machine 98 Descartes: a new foundation for science 99 Cartesian dualism 101 The first account of the reflex 103 The site of mind–body interaction: the pineal gland 105 The early years of the scientific revolution 106 Thomas Willis: the father of modern neurology 108 Cerebri anatome 109 Localising functions in different brain areas 112 The rational soul, animal spirits and nervous activity 114 The microscopic world revealed 114 A test of the animal spirits theory 117 Albrecht von Haller: irritability and sensibility 118 Robert Whytt and the sentient principle 121 5 A new life force: animal electricity 126 The early history of electricity 127 Luigi Galvani and the discovery of animal electricity 129 A rejection of animal electricity: Alessandro Volta 132 Volta invents the battery 135 Animating the dead: Giovanni Aldini 135 The inspiration for Frankenstein 138 The invention and use of the galvanometer 138 Differing views: Johannes Müller and Emil Du Bois-Reymond 140 The discovery of the action potential 142 Hermann von Helmholtz 143 Measuring the speed of the nerve impulse 144 6 The rise and fall of phrenology 149 Franz Joseph Gall: the founder of phrenology 150 Gall in Paris 153 The neuroanatomy of Gall and Spurzheim 153 Exorcising the soul from the brain 155 Feel the bumps, know the man 156 Craniology and social reform 158 Spurzheim and the popularisation of phrenology 158 George Combe 160 What happened to phrenology? 162 Gall’s legacy 164 Lesioning the cerebral cortex: Pierre Flourens 165 Lesioning the cerebellum and medulla 167 Phrenology re-examined 168 7 The nerve cell laid bare 172 The microscope at the turn of the nineteenth century 173 The cradle of histology: Jan Purkinje 174 The first depiction of a nerve cell 175 A landmark in modern biology: the cell theory 178 The nerve cell begins to take shape: Robert Remak 180 Nerve cells are incorporated into cellular theory: Albert von Kölliker 182 The isolated nerve cell: Otto Deiters 185 The silver impregnation stain: Camillo Golgi 187 Objections to the nerve net theory 190 The founder of modern neuroscience: Santiago Ramón y Cajal 191 The nerve cell starts to give up its secrets 193 The neuron doctrine 196 The synapse is named 197 Golgi and Cajal win the Nobel Prize 199 8 The return of the reflex 204 Early accounts of involuntary action 205 The reflex as the mediator of sympathy: Robert Whytt 206 The Bell–Magendie law 208 The excito-motory reflex: Marshall Hall 211 Psychic reflexes: Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov 213 The integrated reflex: Charles Scott Sherrington 215 The discovery of proprioception 217 An examination of more complex reflexes 217 Sherrington’s legacy 218 Conditioned reflexes: Ivan Pavlov 220 Pavlov’s impact on psychology 223 Searching for the engram: Karl Lashley 224 Reflexes as cell assemblies: Donald Hebb 226 9 Mapping the cerebral cortex 231 Language and the frontal lobes: Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud 232 Paul Broca and his speech centre 233 Right-handedness and the dominant hemisphere 235 The minor hemisphere: John Hughlings Jackson 236 A second language centre: Carl Wernicke 238 The discovery of a motor area in the frontal cortex 241 Evidence for localisation builds: David Ferrier 244 Stimulating the human brain 246 Cortical areas for hearing and sight 247 Ferrier’s mistake 248 A test of cortical localisation 249 The story of Phineas Gage 250 10 The rise of psychiatry and neurology 257 A new concept of disease: Giovanni Battista Morgagni 258 The rise of nervous disorders in the eighteenth century 260 The discovery of Parkinson’s disease 262 The Napoleon of the Salpêtrière: Jean Martin Charcot 263 The anatomo-clinical method 264 The discovery of multiple sclerosis 266 Other neurological conditions discovered at the Salpêtrière 267 Charcot’s investigations into hysteria 269 Charcot’s legacy 272 A new way of classifying mental illness: Emil Kraepelin 273 The discovery of schizophrenia 275 A new type of dementia: Alois Alzheimer 276 11 Solving the mystery of the nerve impulse 282 Action potentials and ions: Julius Bernstein 283 The all-or-nothing law 285 Thermionic valves and amplifiers 287 Recording from single nerve fibres: Edgar Adrian 288 The giant squid comes to the rescue 291 Testing Bernstein’s membrane hypothesis 292 The role of sodium in the action potential 294 The action potential explained 295 The role of calcium 297 The quantal release of neurotransmitter 298 The discovery of ion channels 300 12 The discovery of chemical neurotransmission 304 The curious effects of curare 305 The first statement regarding chemical neurotransmission 307 Mapping the sympathetic (‘involuntary’) nervous system 307 Defining the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems: John Newport Langley 309 A claim for neurotransmitters and receptors 312 Henry Dale investigates the properties of ergot 314 The discovery of acetylcholine 316 Demonstrating chemical neurotransmission: Otto Loewi 318 Confirming acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter 320 The soup versus sparks debate 321 Neurotransmitters in the brain 324 The first drug treatments for mental illness 325 The first antidepressants 327 13 Neurosurgery and clinical tales 332 Recovery from brain injury: Francois Quesnay 333 The beginnings of modern neurosurgery 334 The first official neurosurgeon: Victor Horsley 337 Learning from epilepsy: Wilder Penfield 339 Stimulating the human brain 341 Exploring the stream of consciousness 343 Penfield in later life 345 The Wada technique 346 Mental illness under the surgeon’s knife 347 Ice pick surgery 349 The split-brain technique 350 Presenting information to individual hemispheres: Roger Sperry 351 The two different personalities of the brain 353 The man who instantly forgot: the case of HM 354 14 Surveying the last 50 years and looking ahead 360 Neuroscience comes of age: Parkinson’s disease 361 L-dopa therapy 362 The beginning of the genetic revolution 363 The rise of molecular neuroscience 364 Localising the mutation in Huntington’s disease 365 The focus turns to Alzheimer’s disease 367 Drug treatment for Alzheimer’s disease 368 Genetic engineering in neuroscience 369 Historical landmarks in stem cell biology 371 Stem cells in neuroscience 371 Stem cells for research 373 Computers and the development of computerised tomography 374 Visualising the brain in real-time 376 Magnetic resonance imaging 376 Where are brain scanning techniques taking us? 378 The promise of artificial intelligence 379 Brain–computer interfaces 382 A new era begins as big investment targets the brain 383 The final frontier 385 Author Index 393 Subject Index 398