IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000953425

Cerebral Localization in the Nineteenth Century---The Birth of a Science and its Modern Consequences (2009)

Steinberg, David A. (Author)

Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
Volume: 18
Pages: 254--261

Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on cerebral localization
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

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.

...More

Included in

Article York, George K.; Steinberg, David A. (2009) The Sydney Symposium on the History of Cerebral Localization: An Introduction. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences (p. 237). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000953425/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Smith, C. U. M.; (2012)
Philosophy's Loss, Neurology's Gain: The Endeavor of John Hughlings-Jackson (/isis/citation/CBB001201292/)

Article Eadie, M. J.; (2009)
The Role of Focal Epilepsy in the Development of Jacksonian Localization (/isis/citation/CBB000953426/)

Article M. Chirimuuta; (2019)
Synthesis of contraries: Hughlings Jackson on sensory-motor representation in the brain (/isis/citation/CBB021785102/)

Article Plummer, Chris; Vellar, Ivo D.; Murphy, Michael A.; Cook, Mark J.; (2008)
“A Twist in the Tale” of a Surgeon and His Patient: An Australian First in Seizure Localization (/isis/citation/CBB000831385/)

Article Michael Swash; (2015)
John Hughlings Jackson (1835–1911): An Adornment to the London Hospital (/isis/citation/CBB733071565/)

Article M. Chirimuuta; (2017)
Hughlings Jackson and the “Doctrine of Concomitance”: Mind-Brain Theorising Between Metaphysics and the Clinic (/isis/citation/CBB608600329/)

Article Zina B. Ward; (2023)
Muscles or Movements? Representation in the Nascent Brain Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB741559709/)

Book Martin Raitiere; (2014)
The Complicity of Friends: How George Eliot, G. H. Lewes, and John Hughlings-Jackson Encoded Herbert Spencer’s Secret (/isis/citation/CBB623287771/)

Thesis Bassiri, Nima Rad; (2010)
Dislocations of the Brain: Subjectivity and Cerebral Topology from Descartes to Nineteenth-Century Neuroscience (/isis/citation/CBB001567167/)

Article Domanski, Cezary W.; (2014)
Post Scriptum to the Biography of Monsieur Leborgne (/isis/citation/CBB001213877/)

Article Eling, Paul; Draaisma, Douwe; Conradi, Matthijs; (2011)
Gall's Visit to the Netherlands (/isis/citation/CBB001034913/)

Article Gross, Alan G.; (2008)
The Brains in Brain: The Coevolution of Localization and Its Images (/isis/citation/CBB000831407/)

Article Eling, Paul; (2008)
Cerebral Localization in the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century: Emphasizing the Work of Aletta Jacobs (/isis/citation/CBB000831394/)

Article J. Wayne Lazar; (2022)
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century brain maps relating to locations and constructions of brain functions (/isis/citation/CBB868101755/)

Book Stanley Finger; Paul Eling; (2019)
Franz Joseph Gall: Naturalist of the Mind, Visionary of the Brain (/isis/citation/CBB973892972/)

Article J. P. Gamboa; (2020)
Goltz against cerebral localization: Methodology and experimental practices (/isis/citation/CBB349569304/)

Book LaPointe, Leonard L.; (2012)
Paul Broca and the Origins of Language in the Brain (/isis/citation/CBB001213879/)

Book Biran, Maine de; (2002)
Osservazioni sulle divisioni organiche del cervello: traduzione e introduzione a cura di Marco Piazza (/isis/citation/CBB000770246/)

Article Lazar, J. Wayne; (2009)
Diffusion of Electrical Current in the Experiments of Fritsch and Hitzig and Ferrier Failed to Negate Their Conclusion of the Existence of Cerebral Motor Centers (/isis/citation/CBB000953429/)

Article Finkelstein, Gabriel; (2014)
Emil du Bois-Reymond on “The Seat of the Soul” (/isis/citation/CBB001213875/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}