Some aspects of the history of the law of dynamic polarization of the neuron. From William James to Sherrington, from Cajal and van Gehuchten to Golgi

William James was the first to suggest that propagation of impulses in the nervous system proceeds in one direction, from sensory to motor neurons, but not viceversa. His law of forward direction preceded the formulation of the law of dynamic polarization of van Gehuchten and Cajal, which assumed that nerve impulses are conducted cellulipetally along dendrites and cellulifugally along axons, based on different anatomo-functional properties of these neuronal components. Golgi did not accept the law of dynamic polarization because he believed that dendrites are involved in the nutrition of the neuron rather than in impulse propagation, and that impulses can travel in any direction in the axonal components of the diffuse nerve network. Sherrington in turn experimentally demonstrated that intraneuronic conduction is reversible, whereas, in accord with James's law, propagation of impulses along neuronal chains is irreversible, due to the valve-like action of synapses. The story of the law of dynamic polarization shows that neither Golgi nor Cajal paid much heed to Sherrington's findings and to neurophysiological studies in general, probably because they felt that histology alone could provide the key for understanding the general functioning of the nervous system. It is argued here that this attitude was detrimental to the progress of the neurosciences, because a multidisciplinary approach based on different techniques is inevitably called for in order to develop a plausible theory of the nervous system.     

Alcohol and the family in Canada

In the context of the family in Western society, alcohol often has been viewed as a problem. This article traces how the use of beverage alcohol in Canada related to the family in the transition from the preindustrial to late-twentieth-century era. Powerful temperance movements in the nineteenth century, and divisive prohibition policies in the early twentieth, attempted to protect the material and moral health of the family. Although liquor laws and social attitudes became more open starting in the 1930s, the medicalized discourse on alcoholism in the 1940s and 1950s was linked to notions of the family. Liberalization of retail and on - premise sales of alcohol in the 1960s and 1970s attempted to portray moderate drinking by adults as "normal" family activity. In the last quarter of the century, a neotemperance movement, reacting to issue such as impaired and driving and teenage drinking, suggested that alcohol's relationship to the family remained highly ambiguous.     

The origin of the term plasticity in the neurosciences: Ernesto Lugaro and chemical synaptic transmission

The Italian psychiatrist Ernesto Lugaro can be regarded as responsible for introducing the term plasticity into the neurosciences as early as 1906. By this term he meant that throughout life the anatomo-functional relations between neurons can change in an adaptive fashion to enable psychic maturation, learning, and even functional recovery after brain damage. Lugaro's concept of plasticity was strongly inspired by a neural hypothesis of learning and memory put forward in 1893 by his teacher Eugenio Tanzi. Tanzi postulated that practice and experience promote neuronal growth and shorten the minute spatial gaps between functionally associated neurons, thus facilitating their interactions. In addition to discovering the cerebellar cells known by his name and advancing profound speculations about the functions of the glia, Lugaro lucidly foresaw the chemical nature of synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, and was the first to propose the usage of the terms "nervous conduction" and "nervous transmission" in their currently accepted meaning.     

Descartes' embodied psychology: Descartes' or Damasio's error?

Damasio (1994) claims that Descartes imagined thinking as an activity separate from the body, and that the effort to understand the mind in general biological terms was retarded as a consequence of Descartes' dualism. These claims do not hold; they are "Damasio's error". Descartes never considered what we today call thinking or cognition without taking the body into account. His new dualism required an embodied understanding of cognition. The article gives an historical overview of the development of Descartes' radically new psychology from his account of algebraic reasoning in the early Regulae (1628) to his "neurobiology of rationality" in the late Passions of the soul (1649). The author argues that Descartes' dualism opens the way for mechanistic and mathematical explanations of all kinds of physiological and psychological phenomena, including the kind of phenomena Damasio discusses in Descartes' error. The models of understanding Damasio puts forward can be seen as advanced version of models which Descartes introduced in the 1640s. A far better title for his book would have been Descartes' vision.     

寻求新时间:启蒙与反启蒙的时间性北大核心CSSCI

以赛亚·伯林和其他历史主义的代表人物把启蒙与反启蒙运动塑造成了两种对立的文化。反启蒙是从启蒙内部而起的批判,因此在许多方面两者是重叠的。不过,在关于时间的看法方面,两者是相互冲突的。启蒙的时间更多倾向于年代学意义上的,可以被打上"空洞的"标签。而反启蒙对时间的感知却是"具体的"且与历史时间如出一辙。这两种不同的时间必然造成了在同时性问题方面不同的结果。     

鸟老栖枝,人老恋家——记全国政协委员、西藏自治区政协常委谢文根多·格列嘉措

珍贵文物无偿捐献2019年5月27日,第十三届全国政协委员、西藏自治区政协常委、中国侨联委员会海外常委、西藏自治区侨联副主席、归国藏胞、昌都强巴林寺活佛谢文根多·格列嘉措捐赠文物仪式在西藏自治区政协机关举行。西藏自治区人民政府向谢文根多活佛颁发了"捐赠义举瑰宝添彩"的荣誉证书。