Neurognostics Answer

Although many individuals contributed to the development of the science of cerebral localization, its conceptual framework is the work of a single man—John Hughlings Jackson (1835–1911), a Victorian physician practicing in London. Hughlings Jackson's formulation of a neurological science consisted of an axiomatic basis, an experimental methodology, and a clinical neurophysiology. His axiom—that the brain is an exclusively sensorimotor machine—separated neurology from psychiatry and established a rigorous and sophisticated structure for the brain and mind. Hughlings Jackson's experimental method utilized the focal lesion as a probe of brain function and created an evolutionary structure of somatotopic representation to explain clinical neurophysiology. His scientific theory of cerebral localization can be described as a weighted ordinal representation. Hughlings Jackson's theory of weighted ordinal representation forms the scientific basis for modern neurology. Though this science is utilized daily by every neurologist and forms the basis of neuroscience, the consequences of Hughlings Jackson's ideas are still not generally appreciated. For example, they imply the intrinsic inconsistency of some modern fields of neuroscience and neurology. Thus, “cognitive imaging” and the “neurology of art”—two topics of modern interest—are fundamentally oxymoronic according to the science of cerebral localization. Neuroscientists, therefore, still have much to learn from John Hughlings Jackson.     

Neurognostics Answer

William S. Halsted was the founding chief of surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Among his basic principles were (1) the use of the experimental laboratory to solve intraoperative surgical problems, (2) gentle handling of all tissues, and (3) full-time surgical subspecialization. Halsted trained Harvey Cushing, who used Halsted's principles to reinvent neurosurgery to make it successful by lowering mortality and morbidity rates.     

Neurognostics Question

Abstract

Dopamine is among the most well‐researched neurotransmitters at the present time. For the first half‐century of neurotransmitter research, however, interest in dopamine was minimal, and only a few scattered groups of researchers studied it. It was their research that stimulated current interest, and provided the background for our present understanding of this important substance. By the late 1950s, it was clear to these individuals that dopamine served an important physiological role in mammalian brains, and that its role was most likely that of a central nervous system agonist. Soon after this, dopamine, or more specifically the depletion of dopamine, was clearly implicated in Parkinson's disease. This paper looks at the early history of the physiological roles of this intriguing compound.