CGS Lecture 2

What are the main requirements for studying the brain and mind?

The development of ideas, hypotheses, and methods to explore these ideas.

First written mention of the brain

Dates back to 1700 BC.

Copy of surgical treatise

How to treat skull injury (from 48 cases)

Organized in three ways-This is an ailment I will treat, This is an ailment I will try to treat, This is an ailment I will not treat

What is the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus?

A document from ancient Egypt that discusses a skull fracture exposing the cortex.

Egyptian (prehaps universal) view

Heart is the seat of mind and intellect due to the physiological response due to external simulation.

Alcemeaon (Croton Sicily)

450 BC

1st neuroscientist-determined brain is the seat of perception and cognition

Anatomical Dissection-Optic Nerve is from eye to brain which is visible to brain

Light bearing paths

Physical manipulation of eye - Phosphenes

Fire/light in the eye

Hippocrates (Cos, Mediterranean)

452 BC

Physician

Scientific approach to medicine

Determined that epilepsy was not possession by the devil however happened in the brain

Aristotle (450 BC) Disciplines

Philosopher

Leading biologist of the day

Founder of comparative anatomy

founder of embryology

systematic study of animal behavior

Aristotle (450 BC) Work

Dissected 49 animals. -snail to elephant

Never a human

What error did Aristotle make?

The heart not brain controls sensation

Galen (129-199 AD) Pergammon Accomplishments

1st accurate detailed anatomy of the brain

Ox versus human

Lesion experiments

Laryngeal nerve - Pigs lost their ability to vocalize

Galen (129-199 AD) Pergammon Mistake

Soul/mind is located in the ventricles of the brain

Soul - Should not. bea material substance

Medieval Cell Doctrine

Concept involving three brain cells linked to common sense, reason, and memory.

Cell 1-Lateral -Common sense - multimodality

Cell 2 - Middle - reason, thought

Cell 3 - Memory

Who was A. du Laurens?

A professor of medicine in 1597 who referenced Aristotle regarding ventricles in the brain.

Who was Andreas Vesalius?

A significant Renaissance anatomist who studied the human body and brain through dissection.

What was Vesalius's claim about ventricles?

He claimed ventricles are not the seat of the soul and mind because animals have ventricles too.

Thomnas Willis (1664)

Cerebri Anatome - It was a groundbreaking work that described the brain and nervous system

Decartes 1662

Mind-Body Problem

Soul is in the pineal gland

Why did Decartes think the sould was in the pineal gland?

It was the only part in the brain that was truly central and not duplicated in both hemispheres

Who are the founders of Phrenology

Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828)

J.C. Spurzheim (1776-1828)

Methods of Phrenology

Examine Skulls from insae patients to intellege and accomplished patients. Through this they made the conclusion that skulls determine personality

What is Phrenology?

A theory suggesting different parts (a set of 35 intellectual-affective faculties) of the brain perform different functions, identifiable by skull bumps.

What did Borca (1824-1880) do?

He confimed some localization of function

Patient Louis Victor Leborgne

Progressive loss of speech over 21 years

“tan” was the only word he could say

Borca’s aphasia - cannot speak however could understand

Whatd did Patient Louis Victor Leborgne autopsy result in?

Borca discovered that the left frontal lobe was damaged. This showcases that a piece of brain damage can result in a loss of function. Isolated function to one lobe of the brain

Broca's area

Located in the frontal lobe on the left side, related to speech production.

Wernicke's area

Associated with speech comprehension; damage here results in nonsensical speech.

Timeline of brain study contributors

Includes Alcmaeon, Hippocrates, Plato in the pre-Renaissance, da Vinci, Vesalius in Renaissance, and Broca, Wernicke in 1800s.