Minds Behind The Brain - A History Of The Pioneers And Their Discoveries

Zusatztext This book is entertaining and informative with plenty of personal detail and insights into the working practices and conditions of some of the major contributors to what we now call neuroscience. Informationen zum Autor Stanley Finger is a leading historian of neuroscience, author of Origins of Neuroscience, senior editor of Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, and the first president of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences. He is Professor of Psychology at Washington University, where he is in the Program in the Neurosciences as well as the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program. He lives in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Klappentext Attractively illustrated with over a hundred halftones and drawings, this volume presents a series of vibrant profiles that trace the evolution of our knowledge about the brain. Beginning almost 5000 years ago, with the ancient Egyptian study of "the marrow of the skull," Stanley Finger takes us on a fascinating journey from the classical world of Hippocrates, to the time of Descartes and the era of Broca and Ramon y Cajal, to modern researchers such as Sperry. Here is atruly remarkable cast of characters. We meet Galen, a man of titanic ego and abrasive disposition, whose teachings dominated medicine for a thousand years; Vesalius, a contemporary of Copernicus, who pushed our understanding of human anatomy to new heights; Otto Loewi, pioneer in neurotransmitters, who gave the Nazis his Nobel prize money and fled Austria for England; and Rita Levi-Montalcini, discoverer of nerve growth factor, who in war-torn Italy was forced to do her research in her bedroom. For each individual, Finger examines the philosophy, the tools, the books, and the ideas thatbrought new insights. Finger also looks at broader topics--how dependent are researchers on the work of others? What makes the time ripe for discovery? And what role does chance or serendipity play? And he includes many fascinating background figures as well, from Leonardo da Vinci and EmanuelSwedenborg to Karl August Weinhold--who claimed to have reanimated a dead cat by filling its skull with silver and zinc--and Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein was inspired by such experiments. Wide ranging in scope, imbued with an infectious spirit of adventure, here are vivid portraits of giants in the field ofneuroscience--remarkable individuals who found new ways to think about the machinery of the mind. Zusammenfassung Illustrated with over a hundred halftones and drawings, this volume presents a series of profiles that trace the evolution of our knowledge about the brain. Beginning with the ancient Egyptian study of "the marrow of the skull," it takes us on a journey from the classical world of Hippocrates to modern researchers such as Sperry. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1: Introduction: a voyage across time 2: An ancient Egyptian physician: the dawn of neurology 3: Hippocrates: the brain as the organ of mind 4: Galen: The birth of experimentation 5: Andreas Vesalius: the new 'human' neuroanatomy 6: Rene Descartes: the mind-body problem 7: Thomas Willis: the functional organization of the brain 8: Luigi Galvani: electricity and the nerves 9: Franz Joseph Gall: the cerebral organs of the mind 10: Paul Broca: Cortical localization and cerebral dominance 11: David Ferrier and Eduard Hitzig: the experimentalists map the cerebral cortex 12: Jean-Martin Charcot: clinical neurology comes of age 13: Santiago Ramon y Cajal: from nerve nets to neuron doctrine 14: Charles Scott Sherrington: the integrated nervous system 15: Edgar D. Adrian: coding in the nervous s#stem 16: Otto Loewi and Henry Dale: the discovery of neurotransmitters 17: Roger W. Sperry and Rita Levi-Montalcini: from neural growth to 'Split Brains' 18: Pioneers and discoveries in the brain sciences ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Stanley Finger, Stanley (Professor Finger
• Editore: Oxford University Press
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 30.12.2004
• EAN: 9780195181821
• ISBN: 978-0-19-518182-1
• Pagine: 364
• Dimensioni: 178 mm x 248 mm x 32 mm
• Categorie: Saggistica > Storia > Altro; Scienze naturali, medicina, informatica, tecnica > Scienze naturali, tematiche generali