Chapter 1: Past, Present And future

Question 1

Hippocrates (460-379 BC)

Answer 1

The father western medicine

Believed the brain to be the ‘seat of intelligence’ and was involved in sensations

Question 2

Evidence that the brain was thought of in prehistoric times

Answer 2

Archeological records found:

1) Hominids with cranial damage
2) Trepanation (holes made in the skull to cure/release spirits with healing tissue) > 7000 years ago
3) Egyptian writings about TBI symptoms > 5000 years ago; heart was seat of intelligence

Question 2

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Answer 2

Believed the heart to be the seat of intelligence

Thought the brain to be the cooling center for blood (heated by heart)

Question 3

Galen (Greek physician and writer 130-200 AD)

Answer 3

1) Like Hippocrates believed that ‘the brain was the seat of intelligence’
2) Made strong animal dissections and worked on roman gladiators
3) Assumed cerebrum = soft and recipient for sensation and cerebellum hard and recipient for muscle movement
4) Dissected ventricles and believed CSF to be 1 of 4 vital fluids or humors which control movement and register sensation

Note: Ventricle dissection was supported by renaissance anatomist ANDREAS VESALIUS

Question 4

René Descartes (mathematician and philosopher)

Answer 4

1) Believed in the mechanical-fluid theory of the brain (CSF controlled muscles)
2) Believed in the a separate ‘psyche’ which made us distinct to animals and was a separate entity to the brain
3) Coined dualism of the mind and body through the pineal gland

Question 5

Scottish physician Charles Bell and French physiologist François Magendie

Answer 5

Used ‘experimental ablation method’ but on spinal cord to destroy nerve fibers
Bell = ventral spinal root cut > muscle paralysis
Magendie = dorsal spinal root carried sensory information to SC

Question 6

Luigi Galvani and Emil du Bois-Raymond

Answer 6

Demonstrated that muscles could twitch if nerve fibers are electrically stimulated (no CSF) and the brain can produce electricity

Question 7

Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens French physiologist

Answer 7

Used ablation on birds to conclude that the cerebellum was involved in motor control and the cerebrum with perception and sensation
Thought the brain to work as a whole

Question 9

Austrian medical student Franz Joseph Gall

Answer 9

Related the bumps of the skull to the bumps of the brain

Correlated the structure of the brain/head to personality traits (science of phrenology)

Question 10

Paul Broca

Answer 10

Concluded that the left frontal lobe to be involved with speech (patient)
Demonstrated localization of different parts of the brain create different function