History of neuroscience

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From the ancient Egyptian mummifications to 18th century scientific research on "globules"
and neurons, there is evidence of neuroscience practice throughout the early periods of history. The
early civilizations lacked adequate means to obtain knowledge about the human brain. Their
assumptions about the inner workings of the mind, therefore, were not accurate. Early views on the
function of the brain regarded it to be a form of "cranial stuffing" of sorts. In ancient Egypt, from the
late Middle Kingdomonwards, in preparation for mummification, the brain was regularly removed, for it
was the heart that was assumed to be the seat of intelligence. According to Herodotus, during the first
step of mummification: "The most perfect practice is to extract as much of the brain as possible with an
iron hook, and what the hook cannot reach is mixed with drugs." Over the next five thousand years, this
view came to be reversed; the brain is now known to be the seat of intelligence, although colloquial
variations of the former remain as in "memorizing something by heart".

Early views[edit]

Hieroglyphic for the word "brain" (c.1700 BC)

The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, written in the 17th century BC, contains the earliest recorded
reference to the brain. The hieroglyph for brain, occurring eight times in this papyrus, describes the
symptoms, diagnosis, and prognosis of two patients, wounded in the head, who had compound
fractures of the skull. The assessments of the author (a battlefield surgeon) of the papyrus allude to
ancient Egyptians having a vague recognition of the effects of head trauma. While the symptoms are
well written and detailed, the absence of a medical precedent is apparent. The author of the passage
notes "the pulsations of the exposed brain" and compared the surface of the brain to the rippling
surface of copper slag (which indeed has a gyral-sulcal pattern). The laterality of injury was related to
the laterality of symptom, and both aphasia ("he speaks not to thee") and seizures ("he shutters
exceedingly") after head injury were described. Observations by ancient civilizations of the human brain
suggest only a relative understanding of the basic mechanics and the importance of cranial security.
Furthermore, considering the general consensus of medical practice pertaining to human anatomy was
based on myths and superstition, the thoughts of the battlefield surgeon appear to be empirical and
based on logical deduction and simple observation. [1][2]
During the second half of the first millennium BC, the Ancient Greeks developed differing views on the
function of the brain. However, due to the fact that Hippocratic doctors did not practice dissection,
because the human body was considered sacred, Greek views of brain function were generally
uninformed by anatomical study. It is said that it was thePythagorean Alcmaeon of Croton (6th and 5th
centuries BC) who first considered the brain to be the place where the mind was located. According to
ancient authorities, "he believed the seat of sensations is in the brain. This contains the governing
faculty. All the senses are connected in some way with the brain; consequently they are incapable of
action if the brain is disturbed...the power of the brain to synthesize sensations makes it also the seat of
thought: The storing up of perceptions gives memory and belief and when these are stabilized you get
knowledge."[2] In the 4th century BC Hippocrates, believed the brain to be the seat of intelligence
(based, among others before him, on Alcmaeon's work). During the 4th century BC Aristotle thought
that, while the heart was the seat of intelligence, the brain was a cooling mechanism for the blood. He
reasoned that humans are more rational than the beasts because, among other reasons, they have a
larger brain to cool their hot-bloodedness.[3]
In contrast to Greek thought regarding the sanctity of the human body, the Egyptians had been
embalming their dead for centuries, and went about the systematic study of the human body. During the
Hellenistic period, Herophilus of Chalcedon (c.335/330280/250 BC) and Erasistratus of Ceos (c. 300
240 BC) made fundamental contributions not only to brain and nervous systems' anatomy and
physiology, but to many other fields of the bio-sciences. Herophilus not only distinguished
the cerebrum and the cerebellum, but provided the first clear description of the ventricles. Erasistratus
used practical application by experimenting on the living brain. Their works are now mostly lost, and we
know about their achievements due mostly to secondary sources. Some of their discoveries had to be
re-discovered a millennium after their death. [2]

During the Roman Empire, the Greek anatomist Galen dissected the brains of sheep, monkeys, dogs,
swine, among other non-human mammals. He concluded that, as the cerebellum was denser than the
brain, it must control the muscles, while as the cerebrum was soft, it must be where the senses were
processed. Galen further theorized that the brain functioned by movement of animal spirits through the
ventricles. "Further, his studies of the cranial nerves and spinal cord were outstanding. He noted that
specific spinal nerves controlled specific muscles, and had the idea of the reciprocal action of muscles.
For the next advance in understanding spinal function we must await Bell and Magendie in the 19th
Century."[2][3]

Middle Ages[edit]
Renaissance[edit]

One of Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of the human skull

Andreas Vesalius noted many structural characteristics of both the brain and general nervous system
during his dissections of human cadavers. [4] In addition to recording many anatomical features such as
the putamen and corpus collusum, Vesalius proposed that the brain was made up of seven pairs of
'brain nerves', each with a specialized function. Other scientists including Leonardo da Vincifurthered
Vesalius' work by adding their own detailed sketches of the human brain. Ren Descartes also studied
the physiology of the brain, proposing the theory of dualism to tackle the issue of the brain's relation to
the mind. He suggested that the pineal gland was where the mind interacted with the body after
recording the brain mechanisms responsible for circulating cerebrospinal fluid.[5] Thomas Willis studied
the brain, nerves, and behavior to develop neurologic treatments. He described in great detail the
structure of thebrainstem, the cerebellum, the ventricles, and the cerebral hemispheres.

Modern period[edit]
Main article: Neuroscience
The role of electricity in nerves was first observed in dissected frogs by Luigi Galvani in the second half
of the 18th century. Richard Caton presented his findings in 1875 about electrical phenomena of the
cerebral hemispheres of rabbits and monkeys. Studies of the brain became more sophisticated after the
invention of the microscope and the development of a staining procedure by Camillo Golgi during the
late 1890s that used a silver chromate salt to reveal the intricate structures of single neurons. His
technique was used by Santiago Ramn y Cajal and led to the formation of the neuron doctrine, the
hypothesis that the functional unit of the brain is the neuron. Golgi and Ramn y Cajal shared the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for their extensive observations, descriptions and
categorizations of neurons throughout the brain. The hypotheses of the neuron doctrine were supported
by experiments following Galvani's pioneering work in the electrical excitability of muscles and neurons.
In the late 19th century, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Johannes Peter Mller, and Hermann von
Helmholtz showed neurons were electrically excitable and that their activity predictably affected the
electrical state of adjacent neurons.
In parallel with this research, work with brain-damaged patients by Paul Broca suggested that certain
regions of the brain were responsible for certain functions. [6]

Twentieth century[edit]
Neuroscience during the twentieth century began to be recognized as a distinct unified academic
discipline, rather than studies of the nervous system being a factor of science belonging to a variety of
disciplines.
Broca's hypothesis was supported by observations of epileptic patients conducted by John Hughlings
Jackson, who correctly deduced the organization of motor cortex by watching the progression of
seizures through the body. Carl Wernicke further developed the theory of the specialization of specific

brain structures in language comprehension and production. Modern research still uses the Korbinian
Brodmann's cytoarchitectonic (referring to study of cell structure) anatomical definitions from this era in
continuing to show that distinct areas of the cortex are activated in the execution of specific tasks. [6] Eric
Kandel and collaborators have cited David Rioch, Francis O. Schmitt, and Stephen Kuffler as having
played critical roles in establishing the field. [7] Rioch originated the integration of basic anatomical and
physiological research with clinical psychiatry at theWalter Reed Army Institute of Research, starting in
the 1950s. During the same period, Schmitt established a neuroscience research program within the
Biology Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bringing together biology, chemistry,
physics, and mathematics. Kuffler started the Department of Neuroscience at Harvard Medical
School in 1966, the first such freestanding department.