Serendipity and the Cerebral Localization of Pleasure

Most accounts of the discovery of “pleasure” circuits in the brain begin with the observation by James Olds and Peter Milner in 1953 that electrical brain stimulation can condition operant responses in rats. Less well-known, pleasurable brain stimulation was previously observed in schizophrenic patients by Robert Heath. However, Heath failed to recognize the significance of this observation, at least in part, because of preconceived notions he held about the etiology of schizophrenia. This episode in the history of neuroscience illustrates the importance of sagacity in serendipitous scientific discoveries. It also shows that “mental preparedness” can be an obstacle to progress.     

The Serendipity Effect of Aerial Reconnaissance

Abstract

Aerial photography and multisensor imagery have produced many unexpected benefits. Systems designed originally for other purposes, for example, have found uses in fields as diverse as archaeology, meteorology, disaster prediction and prevention, and water resource management. This review offers many examples of such serendipity and suggests that the view from space may even have effects on local governmental arrangements.     

Days of those made like me: retrospective pleasure,sexual knowledge,and C. P. Cavafy's homobiographics

Abstract

This article begins with a comparison between the anonymous Roman d'un inverti (1894/5) and Cavafy's poem ‘Να με?νει’, and then proceeds to read Cavafy's private notes and key erotic poems in the context of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourses about non-normative sexuality. During that period, and in a discursive domain dominated by sexological case studies, the deviant sexual life story was published in order to titillate, check, control and medicalize. In Cavafy's texts we see, instead, a network of homosexual life stories proposed as a platform for the conceptualization of novel sexual, aesthetic and social technologies, as well as a new ethics of contact.     

Comparative localization of academic and industrial spillovers

This paper studies geographic localization of academic and industrialknowledge spillovers. Using data on US research and developmentlaboratories that quantify spatial aspects of learning aboutuniversities and firms as well as the locations of closely affiliateduniversities and firms, I find that academic spillovers aremore localized than industrial spillovers. I also find thatlocalization is increased by nearby stocks of R&D, but reducedby laboratory and firm size. These results on localized academicspillovers reflect the dissemination of normal science and theindustry–university cooperative movement, which encouragefirms to work with nearby universities, so that geographic localizationcoincides with the public goods nature of academic research.This situation contrasts with relations to other firms, wherecontractual arrangements are often needed to access proprietaryinformation, often at a considerable distance.     

The brains in Brain: the coevolution of localization and its images

Images of brain localization from Brain's inception to the present are analyzed. Textual representations and their accompanying images are shown to coevolve; that is, the technological and conceptual development of the research program of localization is shown to evolve simultaneously with the exploitation of visual resources that support these developments. The semiotics of Peirce, the social semiotics of Kress and van Leeuwen, and the insights of Gestalt psychology provide a critical vocabulary with which to describe and to analyze these visual resources. I conclude that brain images evolve in a manner that reflects the uniformity in measuring instruments and the increase in their precision in the localization of brain functions; at the same time, they draw attention away from a persistent constraint: the brain functions so precisely localized are just those that are not constitutive of our humanity.     

Spatio-temporal localization of New Zealand dairying

Changes in the localization of dairy farming in New Zealand are interpreted in terms of environmental advantages, inter-regional competition, transportation costs and policies, and the behaviour of cooperative dairy companies. Since the 1920s dairying has become increasingly localized in environmentally advantaged areas. Competition among dairy companies resulted in o ver-extension of supply areas and disequilibrium between collection costs and economies of scale at the plant. Subsequently, some rationalisation of supply areas has occurred, notably since the adoption of tanker collection from the 1950s with cooperative dairy companies using differential transport pricing policies to discourage suppliers at the spatial margins.     

明清东南沿海卫所军户的地方化——以温州金乡卫为中心

金乡卫设立于明洪武二十年(1387年),下辖蒲门、壮士、沙园三所。清初废卫为镇,改称金乡镇(金镇)。由明至清,卫所军户由单列"卫籍"的特殊群体渐次演变为普通的编户齐民,并逐步融入当地社会,这一过程,可谓为"军户的地方化"。军户的地方化进程大致经历了三个阶段:(1)明中后期,军户家庭逐步形成,军户地方化初现端倪;(2)清前期,裁并卫所,军户转为民户,屯田改为民地,军户地方化进程加速进行;(3)清中后期,军户家族形成并趋于稳定,军户与非军户融合,军户地方化最终完成。军户的地方化是东南沿海沿海卫所军户群体演变的普遍趋势,也是沿海地方社会构建的组成部分。     

An American controversy about the localization of cutaneous sensory regions and their relation to motor regions

Three American neurologists (C. K. Mills, C. L. Dana, and M. A. Starr) explored the anatomical limits of the motor and tactile systems in the brain from 1884 to 1895. Their papers and critiques of one another show contemporary knowledge, limits of their thinking, and difficulties deciding between alternatives. The issue for them was whether there were separate sensory and motor regions or whether there was a combined sensory-motor region. They based their localization arguments on clinical and laboratory findings and on the conclusions of H. Munk and D. Ferrier. There is a discussion about why differences were unresolved.     

Cerebral localization in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century: emphasizing the work of Aletta Jacobs

This paper gives an overview of the ideas on cerebral localization as they were formulated in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In general, it appears that, given the discussions in France, Germany, and Britain, surprisingly little was written and hardly any serious research was performed. Special attention is given to the dissertation on the localization of sensory-motor functions by Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929), known for her social and political activities to improve the position of women. Although it was not a particularly thorough study, it was the only one that seriously and empirically addressed the topic of localization.     

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease from first description to genetic localization of mutations

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is a hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy first described in 1886. Our increasing knowledge of this disease correlates well with the development of methods used in neurology over the past 100 years. Although its physiopathology and treatment is still not fully understood, current developments in techniques are opening the way to future discoveries. We have divided its history into three theoretical periods: the first from 1886 to 1956, which was devoted to clinical and pathological study of the disease; the second from 1956 to 1982, which saw the development of electromyography in the investigation of neuromuscular diseases; and the last and current period based upon genetic research, using the methods of molecular biology.     

"A twist in the tale" of a surgeon and his patient: an Australian first in seizure localization

In 1894 at St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, George Adlington Syme removed a meningioma from a patient with symptomatic focal epilepsy. The operation stands as the first surgery based on seizure localization in Australia. It is also the country's first documented successful resection of an intracranial meningioma. It followed William Macewen's landmark cerebral localization case on the boy John McKinley by 18 years and Victor Horsley's first epilepsy case on Hughlings Jackson's patient James B. by a mere 8 years. Syme's patient, Constable John G., survived the operation by some 23 years, dying from a gunshot wound to the head in 1917. Newly discovered inquest papers reveal that the coroner's judgment that the death was accidental completely fails to address the more credible scenario of suicide. The story makes for a fascinating epilogue to an important landmark in Australia's neurosurgical history.     

Gustave Dax and his fight for recognition: an overlooked chapter in the early history of cerebral dominance

The year 1865 was revolutionary in neuroscience. In this year, three papers were published on the topic of cerebral dominance for speech. These papers were authored by Paul Broca, Marc Dax, and Gustave Dax, and they contributed to a priority debate that cannot be easily resolved. Gustave Dax claimed that his long dead father had written a memoir and presented it orally in Montpellier in 1836, thus making him the first person to write about cerebral dominance. He also claimed that he was the second person to write on the subject, the first to support his father's claims, and the first to try to localize the center for speech in just one part the left hemisphere, the middle (temporal) lobe. Paul Broca, however, was now getting much of the credit for these discoveries. To set the record straight, Gustave published several letters. This paper presents translations of Gustave's letters of 1866, 1875, and 1877, as well as the historical note written by Raymond Caizergues in 1879, and recreates the events that triggered the younger Dax's anger.