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1860s - Paul Broca descubre la localización de la región "Borca" del cerebro, que es esencial para producir habla y establecer las bases del conocimiento sobre la localización de los procesos cognitivos debido a un paciente que mostraba una lesión en dicha area.

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Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , French: ; 28 June 1824 - 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involved with language. His work revealed that the brains of patients suffering from aphasia contained lesions in a particular part of the cortex, in the left frontal region. This was the first anatomical proof of localization of brain function. Broca's work also contributed to the development of physical anthropology, advancing the science of anthropometry.

Paul Broca was born on 28 June 1824 in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Bordeaux, France, the son of Jean Pierre "Benjamin" Broca, a medical practitioner and former surgeon in Napoleon's service. Broca's mother, Annette Thomas, was a well-educated daughter of a Calvinist, Reformed Protestant, preacher. Huguenot Broca received basic education in the school in his hometown, earning a bachelor's degree at the age of 16. He entered medical school in Paris when he was 17, and graduated at 20, when most of his contemporaries were just beginning as medical students.

After graduating, Broca undertook an extensive internship, first with the urologist and dermatologist Philippe Ricord (1800-1889) at the Hôpital du Midi, then in 1844 with the psychiatrist François Leuret (1797-1851) at the Bicêtre Hospital. In 1845, he became an intern with Pierre Nicolas Gerdy (1797-1856), a great anatomist and surgeon. After two years with Gerdy, Broca became his assistant. In 1848, Broca became the Prosector, performing dissections for lectures of anatomy, at the University of Paris Medical School. In 1849, he was awarded a medical doctorate. In 1853, Broca became professor agrégé, and was appointed surgeon of the hospital. He was elected to the chair of external pathology at the Faculty of Medicine in 1867, and one year later professor of clinical surgery. In 1868, he was elected a member of the Académie de medicine, and appointed the Chair of clinical surgery. He served in this capacity until his death. He also worked for the Hôpital St. Antoine, the Pitié, the Hôtel des Clinques, and the Hôpital Necker.

As a researcher, Broca joined the Society Anatomique de Paris in 1847. During his first six years in the society, Broca was its most productive contributor. Two months after joining, he was on the society's journal editorial committee. He became its secretary and then vice president by 1851. Soon after its creation in 1848, Broca joined the Société de Biologie. He also joined and in 1865 became the president of the Societe de Chirurgie (Surgery).

In parallel with his medical career, in 1848, Broca founded a society of free-thinkers, sympathetic to Charles Darwin's theories. He once remarked, "I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam". This brought him into conflict with the church, which regarded him as a subversive, materialist, and a corrupter of the youth. The church's animosity toward him continued throughout his lifetime, resulting in numerous confrontations between Broca and the ecclesiastical authorities.

In 1857, feeling pressured by others, and especially his mother, Broca married Adele Augustine Lugol. She came from a Protestant family and was the daughter of a prominent physician Jean Guillaume Auguste Lugol. The Brocas had three children: a daughter Jeanne Francoise Pauline (1858-1935), a son Benjamin Auguste (1859-1924), and a son Élie André (1863-1925). One year later, Broca's mother died and his father, Benjamin, came to Paris to live with the family until his death in 1877.

In 1858, Paul Broca was elected as member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 1859, he founded the Society of Anthropology of Paris. In 1872, he founded the journal Revue d'anthropologie, and in 1876, the Institute of Anthropology. The French Church opposed the development of anthropology, and in 1876 organized a campaign to stop the teaching of the subject in the Anthropological Institute.

Near the end of his life, Paul Broca was elected a Senator for life, a permanent position in the French senate. He was also a member of the Académie française and held honorary degrees from many learned institutions, both in France and abroad. He died of a brain hemorrhage on 9 July 1880, at the age of 56. During his life he was an atheist and identified as a Liberal. His wife died in 1914 when she was 79. Like their father, Auguste and Andre went on to study medicine. Auguste Broca became a professor of pediatric surgery, now known for his contribution to the Broca-Perthes-Blankart operation, while André became a professor of medical optics and is known for developing the Pellin-Broca prism.

Since the 1600s, the majority of medical advancements emerged through interaction in independent and sometimes secret societies. The Society Anatomique de Paris met every Friday and was chaired by anatomist Jean Cruveilhier, and interned by "the Father of French neurology" Jean-Martin Charcot; both of whom were instrumental in the later discovery of multiple sclerosis. At its meetings, members would make presentations regarding their scientific findings, which would then be published in the regular bulletin of the society's activities.

Like Cruveilhier and Charcot, Broca made regular Society Anatomique presentations on musculoskeletal disorders. He demonstrated that rickets, a disorder that results in weak or soft bones in children, was caused by an interference with ossification due to disruption of nutrition. In their work on osteoarthritis, a form of arthritis, Broca and Amédée Deville, Broca showed that, like nails and teeth, cartilage is a tissue that requires absorption of nutrients from nearby blood vessels, and described in detail, the process that lead to degeneration of cartilage in joints. Broca also made regular presentations on the clubfoot disorder, a birth defect where infants feet where rotated inwards at birth. At the time Broca saw degeneration of muscle tissue as an explanation for this condition, and while the root cause of it is still undetermined, Broca's theory of the muscle degeneration would lead to understanding the pathology of muscular dystrophy. As an anatomist, Broca can be considered as making 250 separate contributions to medical science.

As a surgeon, Broca wrote a detailed review on recently discovered use of chloroform as anesthesia, as well as on his own experiences of using novel pain managing methods during surgery, such as hypnosis and carbon dioxide as a local anesthetics. Broca used hypnosis during surgical removal of an abscess and received mixed results, as the patient felt pain at the beginning which then went away, and she could not remember anything afterwards. Because, of inconsistent results reported by other doctors, Broca did not repeat in using hypnosis as an anesthetic. Because of his patient's memory loss, he saw the most potential in using it as a psychological tool. In 1856, Broca published On Aneurysms and their Treatment, a detailed, almost a thousand page long review of all accessible records on diagnosis and surgical and non treatment for these weakened blood vessels conditions. This book was one of the first published monograms on a specific subject. Before his later achievements, it was this work, that Broca was known for by other French doctors.

As a scientist, Broca also developed theories and made hypotheses that would eventually be disproven. Based on reported findings, he published work in support of viewing syphilis as a virus. When western medicine discovered the qualities of the muscle relaxant curare, used by South American Indian hunters as poison, Broca thought there was strong support for the incorrect idea that, aside from being applied topically, curare could also be diluted and ingested to counter tetanus caused muscle spasms.

Broca also spent many of his earlier years researching cancer. His wife had a known family history of carcinoma, and it is possible that this piqued his interest in exploring possible hereditary causes of cancer. In his investigations, he accumulated evidence supporting the hereditary nature of some cancers while also discovering that cancer cells can run through the blood. Many scientists were skeptical of Broca's hereditary hypothesis, with most believing that it is merely coincidental. He stated two hypotheses for the cause of cancer, diathesis and infection. He believed that the cause may lie somewhere between the two. He then hypothesized that (1) diathesis produces the first cancer (2) cancer produces infection, and (3) infection produces secondary multiple tumors, cachexia, and death."

Broca spent much time at his Anthropological Institute studying skulls and bones. It has been argued that he was attempting to use the measurements obtained by these studies as his main criteria for ranking racial groups in order of superiority. In that sense, Broca was a pioneer in the study of physical anthropology a part of which has been called 'scientific racism.' He advanced the science of cranial anthropometry by developing many new types of measuring instruments ( craniometers) and numerical indices. He published around 223 papers on general anthropology, physical anthropology, ethnology, and other branches of this field. He founded the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris in 1859, the Revue d'Anthropologie in 1872, and the School of Anthropology in Paris in 1876.

In 1858, Broca's presented these findings on leporids to the Société de Biologie. He believed that the key element of his work was its implication that physical differences between human races could be explained by them being different species with different origins rather than the single moment of creation. While Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species did not come out until the following year, the topic of human origin was already widely discussed in science, but still capable of producing a negative response from the government. Because of that worry, Pierre Rayer the president of the Société, along with other members with which Broca was on good relations, asked Broca to stop further discussion of the topic. Broca agreed, but was adamant for the discussion to continue, so in 1859 he formed the Société d'Anthropologie.

Racial groups and human species

As a proponent of polygenism, Broca rejected the monogenistic approach that all humans have a common ancestor. Instead he viewed human racial groups as coming from different origins. Like most of the proponents on either side, he viewed each racial groups as having a place on a 'barbarism' to 'civilization' progression. He saw European colonization of other territories as justified by it being an attempt to civilize the barbaric populations. In his 1859 work, On the Phenomenon of Hybridity in the Genus Homo, he argued that it was reasonable to view humanity as composed of independent racial groups - such as Australian, Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. He saw each racial group as its own species, connected to a geographic location. All together, these different species were part of the single genus homo. Per the standard of the time, Broca would also refer to the Caucasian racial group as white, and to the Ethiopian racial group as Negro. In his writings, Broca's use of the 'race' was narrower than how it is used today. Broca considered Celts, Gauls, Greeks, Persians and Arabs to be distinct races that were part of the Caucasian racial group. Races within each group had specific physical characteristics that distinguished them from other racial groups. Like his work in anatomy, Broca emphasized that his conclusions rested on empirical evidence, rather than reasoning. He thought that the distinct geographic location of each racial group was one of the main problems with the monogenists argument for common ancestry:

There was even, no necessity to insist upon the difficulty, or greater geographical impossibility of the dispersion of so many races proceeding from a common origin, nor to remark that before the remote and the almost recent migrations of Europeans, each natural group of human races occupied upon our planet a region characterized by a special fauna; that no American animal was found either in Australia nor in the ancient continent, and where men of a new type were discovered, there were only found animals belonging to species, then to general, and sometimes to zoological orders, without analogues in other regions of the globe.

Broca also felt that there was not enough evidence for the theory that appearance of different races could be changed by the qualities of the environments that they lived in. Broca saw the physical characteristic of Jews being the same as those portrayed in the Egyptian paintings from the 2,500 b.c., even though, by 1850 a.d. that population had spread to different locations with vastly different environments. He pointed out that his opponents were unable to provide similar long term comparisons.

Broca, influenced by previous work Samuel George Morton, used the concept of hybridity as his primary argument against monogenis, and that it was flawed to see all of humanity as a single species. Different racial groups' ability to reproduce with each was not sufficient to prove that idea. Under Broca's view on hybridity, the result of a reproduction between two different races could fall into four categories: 1) The resulting offspring are infertile; 2) Where the resulting offspring are infertile when they reproduce between themselves but are sometimes successful when they reproduce with the parent groups; 3) Known as Paragenesic, where the offspring's descendants are able reproduce within themselves and with parents, but the success of the reproduction lowers with every generation until it ends; and 4) Known as Eugenesic, where a successful reproduction can continue indefinitely, between the intermix descendants and with the parent group.

Looking at historical population figures, Broca concluded that the population of France was an example of a Eugenesic mixed race, resulting from intermixing of Cimri, Celtic, Germanic and Northern races within the Caucasian group. On the other hand, the thought that observations and population data from different regions of Africa, Southeast Asia, and North and South America, showed a significant decrease in physical and intellectual abilities of mixed groups when compared to the different races that they originated from. Concluding that intermixed descendants of different racial groups could only be Paragenesic.

I am far from advancing these suppositions as demonstrated truths. I have studied and analysed all documents within my reach; but I cannot be responsible for facts not ascertained by myself, and which are too much in opposition to generally received opinions to be admitted without strict investigation... Until we obtain further particulars we can only reason upon the known facts; but these, it must be admitted, are so numerous and so authentic as to constitute if not a rigorous definitive demonstration, at least a strong presumption of the doctrines of polygenists.

On the Phenomenon of Hybridity was published the same year as Darwin's presentation of the theory of evolution in the On the Origin of Species. At that time, Broca thought of each racial group as independently created by nature. He was against slavery and disturbed by extinction of native populations caused by colonization. Broca thought that monogenism was often used to justify such actions, when it was argued that, if all races were of a single origin then the lower status of non-Caucasians was caused by how their race acted following creation. He wrote:

The difference of origin by no means implicates the subordination of races. It, on the contrary, implicates the idea that each race of men has originated in a determined region, as it were, as the crown of the fauna of that region; and if it were permitted to guess at the intention of nature, we might be led to suppose that she has assigned a distinct inheritance to each race, because, despite of all that has been said of the cosmopolitism of man, the inviolability of the domain of certain races is determined by their climate.

Craniometry

Broca is known for making contributions towards anthropometry-the scientific approach to measurements of human physical features. He developed numerous instruments and data points that were the basis of current methods of medical and archeological craniometry. Specifically, cranial points like glabella and inion and instruments like craniograph and stereograph. Unlike Morton, who believed that a subject's brain size was the main indicator of intelligence, Broca thought that there were other factors that were more important. These included prognathic facial angles, with closer to right angles indicating higher intelligence, and the cephalic index relationship between the brain's length and width, that was directly proportional with intelligence, with the most intelligent European group being 'long headed', while the least intelligent Negro group being 'short headed'. He thought that the most important aspect, was the relative size between the frontal and rear areas of the brain, with Caucasians having a larger frontal area than Negroes. Broca eventually came to the conclusion that larger skulls were not associated with higher intelligence, but still believed brain size was important in some aspects such as social progress, material security, and education. He compared cranial capacity of different types of Parisian skulls. In doing so he found that the average oldest Parisian skull was smaller than a modern, wealthier Parisian skull and that both were bigger than the average skull from a poor Parisian's grave. Aside from his approaches to craniometry, Broca made other contributions to anthropometry, such as developing field work scales and measuring techniques for classifying eye, skin, and hair color, designed to resist water and sunlight damage.

In 1868 the English naturalist Charles Darwin criticized Broca for believing in the existence of a tailless mutant of the Ceylon junglefowl, described in 1807 by the Dutch aristocrat, zoologist and museum director Coenraad Jacob Temminck.

Stephen Jay Gould

Broca was one of the first anthropologists engaged in comparative anatomy of primates and humans. Comparing then dominant craniometry based measures of intelligence as well as other factors such as relative forearm-to-arm length, he proposed that Negroes were an intermediate form between apes and Europeans. The renowned evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould criticized Broca and his contemporaries of being engaged in " scientific racism" when conducting their research. Basing their work on biological determinism, and " expectations" that "social and economic differences between human groups-primarily races, classes, and sexes-arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology."

Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, and two years later Broca published On the Phenomenon of Hybridity. Soon after Darwin's publication, Broca accepted evolution as one of the main elements of a broader explanation for diversification of species: "I am one of those who do not think that Charles Darwin has discovered the true agents of organic evolution; on the other hand I am not one of those who fail to recognize the greatness of his work ... Vital competition ... is a law; the resultant selection is a fact; individual variation, another fact."

He came to reject polygenism as applied to humans, conceding that all races were of single origin. In 1866, after the discovery of a chinless and protruded neanderthal jaw, he wrote: "I have already had occasion to state that I am not a Darwinist ... Yet I do not hesitate ... to call this the first link in the chain which, according to the Darwinists, extends from man to ape..." He saw some differences between groups of animals as too distinct to be explained through evolution from a single source:

There is no reason for limiting to a single spot and single moment the spontaneous evolution of matter ... To me it seems most likely that centers of organization appeared in very different places and at very different periods ... This polygenic transformism is what I would be inclined to accept ... My objection against Darwinism would be invalid if it conceded that organized beings have an undetermined but considerable number of distinct origins and if structural analogies were no longer considered sufficient proof for common parentage.

Even on a narrower level Broca saw evolution as insufficient explanation for the presence of some traits:

Apply Darwin's thinking to the genus Orang (Satyrus) ... He alone, of all the primates, has no nail on his big toe. Why? ... The Darwinists will answer that one day a certain Pithecus was born without a big toe nail, and his descendants have perpetuated this variety ... Let us call this ape ... Prosatyrus I, as it behooves the founder of a dynasty ... While, according to the law of immediate heredity, some of his offspring were like their other ancestors in having a nail on every toe, one or more were deprived of the first nail like their father ... Thanks to natural selection, this character finally became constant ... But I do not see ... how this negative characteristic ... might give him advantage in the struggle for existence.

Ultimately, Broca believed that there had to be a process that ran parallel to evolution, to fully explain the origins of, and divergences, between different species.

Broca's Area

This area of study began for Broca with the dispute between the proponents of cerebral localization - whose views derived from the phrenology of Franz Joseph Gall - and their opponents led by Pierre Flourens. Phrenologists believed that the human mind has a set of various mental faculties, each one represented in a different area of the brain. With specific areas representing personality characteristics like one's aggressiveness or spirituality, but also memory and linguistic abilities. Their opponents claimed that, by careful ablation (specific way of removing material) of various brain regions, Flourens had disproved Gall's hypotheses. However, Gall's former student, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, kept the localization of function hypothesis alive (especially with regards to a "language center"), although he rejected much of the remaining phrenological thinking. In 1848, Bouillaud relied on his work with brain damaged patients to challenge other professionals to disprove him by finding a case of frontal lobe damage unaccompanied by a disorder of speech. His son-in-law, Ernest Aubertin (1825-1893), began seeking out cases to either support or disprove the theory, and he found several in support of it.

Broca's Society of Anthropology of Paris was where language was regularly discussed in the context of race and nationality, it also became a platform for addressing its physiological aspects. The localization of function controversy became a topic of regular debate when several experts of head and brain anatomy, including Aubertin, joined the society. Most of these experts still supported Flourens argument, but Aubertin was persistent in presenting new patients to counter their views. However, it was Broca, not Aubertin, who finally put the localization issue to rest.

In 1861, Broca visited a patient, named Louis Victor Leborgne in the Bicêtre Hospital, who had a 21-year progressive loss of speech and paralysis but not a loss of comprehension nor mental function. He was nicknamed "Tan" due to his inability to clearly speak any words other than "tan". Leborgne died several days later due to an uncontrolled infection and resultant gangrene, Broca performed an autopsy, hoping to find a physical explanation for Leborgne's disability. He determined that, as predicted, Leborgne did in fact have a lesion in the frontal lobe in one of the cerebral hemispheres, which in this case turned out to be the left. From a comparative progression of Leborgne's loss of speech and motor movement, the area of the brain important for speech production was determined to lie within the third convolution of the left frontal lobe, next to the lateral sulcus. One day after Tan's death Broca presented his findings to the anthropological society.

A second case after Leborgne is what solidified Broca's beliefs that our speech function was localized. Lazare Lelong was an 84-year-old grounds worker who was being treated at Bicêtre for dementia. He had also lost the ability to speak other than five simple, meaningful words - these included his own name, "yes", "no", "always" as well as the number "three". After his death his brain was also autopsied. Broca found a lesion that encompassed much the same area as had been affected in Leborgne's brain. This finding concluded that a specific area controlled our ability to produce meaningful sounds, and when it is affected, one can lose their capability to communicate. For the next two years, Broca went on to find autopsy evidence from twelve more cases in support of the localization of articulated language.

Broca published his findings from the autopsies of the twelve patients in his paper, "Localization of Speech in the Third Left Frontal Cultivation" in 1865. His work inspired others to perform careful autopsies with the aim of linking more brain regions to sensory and motor functions. Although history credits this discovery to Broca, another French neurologist, Marc Dax, had made similar observations a generation earlier. Based on his work with approximately forty patients and subjects from other papers, Dax presented his findings at a 1836 conference of southern France physicians in Montpellier. Unfortunately, Dax died soon after this presentation and it was not reported or published until after Broca made his initial findings. Accordingly, Dax's and Broca's conclusions that the left frontal lobe is essential for producing language are considered to be independent.

The brains of many of Broca's aphasic patients are still preserved and available for viewing on a limited basis in the special collections of the Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University (UPMC) in Paris. The collection was formerly displayed in the Musée Dupuytren. His collection of casts is in the Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière. Broca presented his study on Leborgne in 1861 in the Bulletin of the Société Anatomique.

Patients with damage to Broca's area and/or to neighboring regions of the left inferior frontal lobe are often categorized clinically as having Expressive aphasia (also known as Broca's aphasia). This type of aphasia, which often involves impairments in speech output, can be contrasted with Receptive aphasia, (also known as Wernicke's aphasia), named for Karl Wernicke, which is characterized by damage to more posterior regions of the left temporal lobe, and is often characterized by impairments in language comprehension.

Broca's legacy

The discovery of Broca's area revolutionized the understanding of language processing, speech production, and comprehension, as well as what effects damage to this area may cause. Broca played a major role in the localization of function debate, by resolving the issue scientifically with Leborgne and his 12 cases thereafter. His research led others to discover the location of a wide variety of other functions, specifically Wernicke's area.[citation needed ]

New research has found that dysfunction in the area may lead to other speech disorders such as stuttering and apraxia of speech. Recent anatomical neuroimaging studies have shown that the pars opercularis of Broca's area is anatomically smaller in individuals who stutter whereas the pars triangularis appears to be normal.

He also invented more than 20 measuring instruments for the use in craniology, and helped standardize measuring procedures.

His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

1849. De la propagation de l'inflammation - Quelques propositions sur les tumeurs dites cancéreuses. Doctoral dissertation.

1856. Des anévrysmes et de leur traitement. Paris: Labé & Asselin

1861. "Sur le principe des localisations cérébrales". Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie 2: 190-204.

1861. "Perte de la parole, ramollissement chronique et destruction partielle du lobe antérieur gauche." Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie 2: 235-38.

1861. "Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé, suivies d'une observation d'aphémie (perte de la parole)." Bulletin de la Société Anatomique de Paris 6: 330-357

1861. "Nouvelle observation d'aphémie produite par une lésion de la moitié postérieure des deuxième et troisième circonvolution frontales." Bulletin de la Société Anatomique 36: 398-407.

1863. "Localisations des fonctions cérébrales. Siège de la faculté du langage articulé." Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie 4: 200-208.

1864. On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus Homo. London: Pub. for the Anthropological society, by Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts

1865. "Sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé." Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie 6: 377-393

1866. "Sur la faculté générale du langage, dans ses rapports avec la faculté du langage articulé." Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie deuxième série 1: 377-82

1871-1878. Mémoires d'anthropologie, 3 vols. Paris: C. Reinwald (vol. 1 | vol. 2 | vol. 3)

1879. "Instructions relatives à l'étude anthropologique du système dentaire." In: Bulletins de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, III° Série. Tome 2, 1879. pp. 128-163.

1. ^ Broca's finding that cartilage was a living tissue requiring nutrition, was also independently made by Peter Redfern at University and King's College, Aberdeen. Redfern, Peter (1850). Normal Nutrition in Human Articular Cartilages, with Experimental Researches on the Lower Animals. Sutherland and Knox.

2. ^ His contributions and discoveries included: "a third pair of suspensory at the back of the tongue, ... that the splenic pulp ... is composed of ... nucleated cells ... some new and correct opinions on the structure of the liver, the arcades of arteries supplying the gums." Schiller, 1979, p. 97

3. ^ Broca's studies on hypnotism were performed in association with other physicians that were studying it: Étienne Eugène Azam, Charles-Pierre Denonvilliers, François Anthime Eugène Follin, and Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau, Broca performed the first experiments in Europe using hypnotism as surgical anesthesia.

4. Broca took into consideration works by multiple authors such as ^ Arthur de Gobineau, Robert Knox, Georges Pouchet, Samuel George Morton and Herbert Spencer. Broca, 1964.

5. ^ Broca justified using geographic locations rather than skin color when classifying racial groups: "It has been shown that the American type alone includes red, brown, black, white and yellow races. There are brown races in the American, and even in the Caucasian type. All the black races do not belong to the Ethiopian type; and finally, the Malayo-Polynesian type comprises races of colours as various as those belonging to the American type. A classification founded on differences of colour would lead to numerous and serious errors." Broca, 1864, p. 9

6. ^ As of 2016, several meta-studies have shown, that in humans, there is a weak correlation between brain size and general intelligence, with results ranging from 9 to 15 percent.

7. ^ In that study, Broca's primary purpose was to compare brain sizes and shapes of Basque and French populations, and participated in digging up 60 skulls from Basque graves while vacationing in Pyrenees.

8. ^ In his paper "Lesions of the Left Half of the Brain Coincident with the Forgetting of the Signs of Thought" Dax described patients with tumors, strokes as well as sword wounds; no autopsy information was included. Finger, 200, p. 146

Buckingham HW (2006). "The Marc Dax (1770-1837)/Paul Broca (1824-1880) controversy over priority in science: left hemisphere specificity for seat of articulate language and for lesions that cause aphemia". Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. 20 (7-8): 613-9. doi:10.1080/02699200500266703. PMID 17056493. S2CID 45990106.

Clower WT, Finger S (December 2001). "Discovering trepanation: the contribution of Paul Broca". Neurosurgery. 49 (6): 1417-25, discussion 1425-6. doi:10.1097/00006123-200112000-00021. PMID 11846942. S2CID 16318753.

Cowie SE (2000). "A place in history: Paul Broca and cerebral localization". Journal of Investigative Surgery. 13 (6): 297-8. doi:10.1080/089419300750059334. PMID 11202005. S2CID 19915555.

Finger, Stanley (2000). . Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508571-X.

Finger S (June 2004). "Paul Broca (1824-1880)". Journal of Neurology. 251 (6): 769-70. doi:10.1007/s00415-004-0456-6. PMID 15311362. S2CID 34597873.

Harris LJ (January 1991). "Cerebral control for speech in right-handers and left-handers: an analysis of the views of Paul Broca, his contemporaries, and his successors". Brain and Language. 40 (1): 1-50. doi:10.1016/0093-934X(91)90115-H. PMID 2009444. S2CID 36454926.

Jay V (March 2002). "Pierre Paul Broca". Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. 126 (3): 250-1. doi:10.1043/0003-9985(2002)126<0250:PPB>2.0.CO;2 (inactive 1 September 2020). ISSN 0003-9985. PMID 11860295.

LaPointe, Leonard (2012). Paul Broca and the Origins of Language in the Brain. San Diego, Plural Publishing, Inc.

Lee DA (May 1981). "Paul Broca and the history of aphasia: Roland P. Mackay Award Essay, 1980". Neurology. 31 (5): 600-2. doi:10.1212/wnl.31.5.600. PMID 7015163. S2CID 23037749.

Monod-Broca P (October 2001). "Paul Broca: 1824-1880". Annales de Chirurgie (in French). 126 (8): 801-7. doi:10.1016/S0003-3944(01)00600-9. PMID 11692769.

Schiller F (May 1983). "Paul Broca and the history of aphasia". . 33 (5): 667. doi:10.1212/wnl.33.5.667. PMID 6341875. S2CID 43728185.

Schiller, Francis (1979). Paul Broca, Founder of French Anthropology, Explorer of the Brain. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-03744-1.

Stone JL (July 1991). "Paul Broca and the first craniotomy based on cerebral localization". Journal of Neurosurgery. 75 (1): 154-9. doi:10.3171/jns.1991.75.1.0154. PMID 2045905.

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Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , French: ; 28 June 1824 - 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involved with language.

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1870s - Karl Wernicke amplía nuestra comprensión de cómo el cerebro procesa el lenguaje al descubrir otra región que es crucial para la comprensión del lenguaje debida a una lesión localizada en una zona posterior con relación al paciente de Broca (en el planum supratemporal)

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Carl (or Karl) Wernicke (; German: ; 15 May 1848 - 15 June 1905) was a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist. He is known for his influential research into the pathological effects of specific forms of encephalopathy and also the study of receptive aphasia, both of which are commonly associated with Wernicke's name and referred to as Wernicke encephalopathy and Wernicke's aphasia, respectively. His research, along with that of Paul Broca, led to groundbreaking realizations of the localization of brain function, specifically in speech. As such, Wernicke's area (a.k.a. Wernicke's Speech Area) has been named after the scientist.

Wernicke was born on May 15, 1848 in Tarnowitz, a small town in Upper Silesia, Prussia, now Tarnowskie Góry, Poland. He obtained his secondary education at the gymnasium in Oppeln, which is a school near the university of Breslau. Wernicke then studied medicine at the University of Breslau and did graduate work studying language and aphasia at Breslau, Berlin, and Vienna.

After he earned his medical degree at the University of Breslau (1870), he worked in Breslau at Allerheiligen Hospital as an assistant to an ophthalmology professor Ostrid Foerster for six months. Unfortunately in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, where Wernicke served as an army surgeon. After serving in the war, he returned to the Allerheiligen Hospital and worked in the psychiatric department as an assistant under Professor Heinrich Neumann. Neumann sent him to Vienna for six months to study with neuropathologist Theodor Meynert, who would have a profound influence upon Wernicke's career.

In 1875, Wernicke was appointed the first assistant in the Berlin Charite clinic under Karl Westphal, where he stayed until 1878 studying psychiatry and nervous diseases.

In 1878 Wernicke founded a private neuropsychiatric practice in Berlin and published numerous articles until he left the practice in 1881. In 1885, he succeeded his mentor Professor Neumann and served as associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Breslau, where he also attained a conference chair. By 1890 Wernicke became the director of the psychiatric wing at the Allerheiligen Hospital, and he also became head of the University Hospital's Department of Neurology and Psychiatry. In 1904, Wernicke worked at the University of Halle, heading its Psychiatry and Neurology Clinic.

Wernicke died on June 15, 1905 due to injuries suffered from a bicycle accident in the Thuringian Forest.

Wernicke was heavily inspired by the research on language and communication coming from Paris, France, specifically from Paul Pierre Broca. Broca's work on motor aphasia influenced Wernicke's interests in psychophysiology and aphasiology relating to language. Wernicke began to question the relationship between dysphasia and the location of lesions that caused brain damage resulting in language problems.

While studying with Mynert in 1874, Wernicke published Der Aphasische Symptomencomplex. In his book, Wernicke described sensory aphasia, which is now known as Wernicke's aphasia, as being distinctly different from motor aphasia, described by Broca. He categorized sensory aphasia as fluent but disordered speech, impaired understanding of speech, and impaired silent reading. Incorporating Broca's findings on motor aphasia, Wernicke described both forms of aphasia as being results of brain damage. However, the location of damage determined which aphasia a patient developed. He described sensory aphasia as a result from lesions to the left temporal lobe and motor / Broca's aphasia as a result from lesions to the left posterior frontal lobe. These two concepts were the foundation for his theory on the neural bases of language.

Wernicke hypothesized that motor activity was accompanied by sensory stimulation and that there were fibers connected the motor and sensory cortexes in the brain, so there must also be a connection between the lesioned areas contributing to sensory and motor aphasia. He discussed the problems with severing this connection, assuming both structures remain intact. The area affecting sensory aphasia would still function, so a patient could hypothetically retain comprehension of oral speech and silent reading. However, the connection to Broca's area would be broken, causing prevention of effective translation of mental processes into verbal speech.

Wernicke additionally discussed the dangers of mistaking sensory aphasia with a confused or psychotic state, and he emphasized the importance of distinguishing between aphasia and agnosia, the failure to recognize objects, which was described by Sigmund Freud in 1891.

Wernicke proposed a theory of localization and suggested that different identifiable regions of the brain control different behaviors and these areas interact to produce more behaviors. This is the case with Broca's and Wernicke's areas interacting to produce language. Broca and Wernicke's work paved the way for others to study and identify localized areas of the brain, including the identification of the motor homunculus as well as the theory that brain damage in specific areas is responsible for different disorders, diseases, and abnormal behaviors.

Ludwig Lichtheim, a Professor of Medicine at Bern University Hospital, wrote his work "Über Aphasie," which was influenced by Broca, Wernicke and Adolf Kussmaul. Lichtheim's work analyzed language abilities and categorized language disorders into seven different aphasias, Wernicke's aphasia being one of them. Wernicke then adopted Lichtheim's aphasia classification and became the Wernicke-Lichtheim model.

At the 59th Breslau conference in 1892, Karl Kahlbaum described paranoia based on a case study that Wernicke was familiar with. Wernicke described the case study as an example of what he called the "elementary symptom," which is the notion that there is a single, fundamental symptom and all other symptoms are derived from the elementary symptom.

Karl Leonhard also followed Wernicke's studies. Although Leonhard rejected the "elementary symptom" theory because it overgeneralizes symptoms of disorders, he did incorporate Wernicke's psychopathological categories of disorders into Emil Kraepelin's binary system of classification. For example, Leonhard renamed Wernicke's "anxiety-psychosis" as "cycloid psychosis," which does resemble schizophrenia and Bipolar cycling. Kraepelin also rejected the elementary symptom theory by describing all of the clinical aspects of a particular disorder (nosology) in contrast to Wernicke's theory, which attempted to home in on the key symptom instead of looking at each disorder as a whole.

The theory of elementary symptom was generally rejected and is not a well-known concept today because of the lack of supporting evidence for the theory. Although the theory itself is not supported in modern nosology and etiology, it does have a general influence in psychopharmacology practices with its notion of a target symptom. Clinical psychopharmacology typically treats particular symptoms instead of disorders and diagnoses as a whole. Modern psychiatry does rest on assumptions that some symptoms result from other symptoms, parallel to Wernicke's theory.

Wernicke himself did not pursue research on the elementary symptom theory because of his devotion to aphasiology. One of the fundamental problems with the elementary symptom theory is that Wernicke described anxiety as the elementary symptom of many disorders. This was problematic for the theory because anxiety, to some extent, is seen in almost all psychiatric disorders. This caused the elementary symptom to fail at categorizing clinical descriptions and proper treatments. Another difficulty for Wernicke and other psychologists was determining which symptom was the elementary symptom and given priority over other symptoms that might be just as important to treat and might not be a direct result of another symptom. Lastly, Wernicke preserved traditional German psychiatry and described clinical vignettes, being unable to distinguish between physical and psychological causes of symptoms instead of using Kraepelin's approach of delineation of syndromes and disorders.

In 1897, with Theodor Ziehen (1862-1950), he founded the journal Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie.

Conference proceedings from Breslau were published in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie und Psychische-Gerichtliche Medizin.

Principal written works by Wernicke include:

Der aphasische Symptomencomplex. Eine psychologische Studie auf anatomischer Basis [The aphasic symptom complex: a psychological study from an anatomical basis]; Breslau, M. Crohn und Weigert, 1874.

Das Urwindungssystem des menschlichen Gehirns [The Primordial Gyral-System of the Human Brain], 1876.

Lehrbuch der Gehirnkrankheiten : für Aerzte und Studirende [Textbook of brain diseases: for doctors and students], 1881.

Über hemiopische Pupillenreaktion [On hemianopsic pupillary response], in Fortschritte der Medicin, 1883, 1: 49-53.

Grundriss der Psychiatrie in klinischen Vorlesungen [Foundation of psychiatry in clinical lectures], 1894.

Atlas des Gehirns; Schnitte durch das menschliche Gehirn in photographischen Originalen [Atlas of the brain; sections of the human brain from photographic originals], 1897.

Krankenvorstellungen aus der psychiatrischen klinik in Breslau [Ideas on illness from the psychiatric clinic in Breslau], 1899.

Anthologies

Eggert, Gertrude H. (1977). Wernicke's works on aphasia: A sourcebook and review. Mouton. ISBN 9789027979858.

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Carl (or Karl) Wernicke (; German: ; 15 May 1848 - 15 June 1905) was a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist. He is known for his influential research into the pathological effects of specific forms of encephalopathy and also the study of receptive aphasia, both of which are commonly associated with Wernicke's name and referred to as Wernicke encephalopathy and Wernicke's aphasia, respectively.

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Al estimular eléctricamente el cerebro de los animales, Eduard Hitzig y Gustav Fritsch son capaces de mapear las áreas motoras del cerebro y mostrar que determinadas regiones cerebrales se encargan de controlar los movimientos musculares.

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Gustav Fritsch (1838-1927)

Fig. 1. Retrato de Gustav Fritsch.

Gustav Fritsch nació el 5 de marzo de 1838 en Cottbus, hijo de un oficial menor del gobierno de Prusia. A la edad de 19 años decidió estudiar fisiología con Johannes Müller en Berlin, pero como este murió ese mismo año (1875), Fritsch hizo una carrera militar y después estudió medicina en las Universidades de Berlín, Brealau y Heidelberg. Se graduó en 1862 con una tésis sobre el sistema nervioso central. Después viajó a SudAfrica, donde hizo estudios antropológicos y geográficos. Regresó a Prusia, pero al año siguiente salió a Aden como miembro de una expedición que estudiaría el eclipse solar de 1868. Después tomó parte en un viaje antropológico a través de Egipto, donde demostró su maestría en fotografía. Cuando regresó a Berlín publicó su primer libro e hizo el trabajo con Hitzig que describimos abajo. Fue nombrado Profesor de Anatomía Comparada y volvió a tomar parte en otra expedición astronómica, esta vez a Ispahan para estudiar el planeta Venus. Prolongó su viaje hasta Smirna para estudiar la anatomía comparada del cerebro de peces y aquí, mientras disecaba un tiburón, descubrió del par craneal 0. Murió el 12 de junio de 1927, a la edad de 89 años.

Gustav Fritsch vivió casi 90 años, durante los cuales trabajó en un gran número de temas. Antes del trabajo con Hitzig reseñado abajo, publicó numerosos trabajos sobre anatomía comparada y bajo la inspiración de su maestro Emil du Bois-Reymond, estudió sistemáticamente la anatomía de cinco de las siete familas conocidas de peces eléctricos, convirtiéndose en una autoridad en órganos eléctricos.

El trabajo de Paul Broca (1824-1880) de 1861 describe la primera localización cortical que fue aceptada en forma general, el habla articulada generada por la corteza frontal y puede ser visto como el trabajo clínico mas importante en la historia de la localización cortical. Sin embargo, el descubrimiento nueve años después del área motora cortical en el perro, puede ser el descubrimiento de la boratorio mas significativo en este tema. En ese año, Gustav Fritsch (1838-1927) y Eduard Hitzig (1838-1907) hicieron su famoso experimento en perros, en el que demostraron que la localización cortical no estaba restringida a una sola función. Este trabajo destruyó la idea previa (Marie-Jean Pierre Flourens, 1794-1867) de que la corteza no estaba directamente involucrada en el control del movimiento. Mas aún, con ese descubrimiento ellos demostraron que se aprende mucho a partir de experimentos hechos en animales de laboratorio.

Sin embargo, el trabajo de Fristch y Hitzig no fue hecho en el laboratorio, sino sobre una mesa de una recámara en la casa que Hitzig tenía en Berlín. Antes de esto Hitzig había sido médico en un hospital de Berlín, donde desarrolló un aparato que generaba corrientes eléctricas terapéuticas y lo probó con sus pacientes. Cuando aplicaba la corriente a la parte posterior de la cabeza de un paciente producía movimientos oculares, por lo que pensó en seguir esos experimentos. Sin embargo, aunque Hitzig ya había tenido algunos buenos resultados con conejos, no había podido demostrar que existía una corteza motora, ya que cabía la posibilidad de que el cerebelo respondiera a la estimulación. Igualmente, las corrientes podían haberse extendido a los ganglios basales y de hecho, ya varios habían tratado de producir movimientos estimulando la corteza y casi siempre obtenían resultados negativos.

Entonces Hitzig, un psiquiatra, invitó a Fritsch, un anatomista, a hacer experimentos en perros y decidieron estimular con una intensidad sólo suficiente para sentir la corriente cuando se aplicaba sobre la lengua. Aplicando a la corteza del perrro esas corrientes, encontraron áreas bien definidas donde se producía el movimiento de la pata anterior, pata trasera, cara y cuello del lado opuesto del cuerpo, por lo que concluyeron: "una parte de la convexidad del hemisferio del cerebro es motora, otra parte no es motora. La parte motora, en general, está mas adelante y la no-motora detrás. Por la estimulación de la parte motora se obtienen contracciones musculares combinadas del lado opuesto del cuerpo. Usando corrientes muy débiles, estas contracciones musculares se localizan a ciertas grupos muy bien limitados... La posibilidad de estimular grupos de músculos bien limitados está restringida a focos muy pequeños que llamaremos centros." (Fritsch und Hitzig, 1870)

Es interesante preguntarse porqué los predecesores de Fritsch y Hitzig no habían obtenido movimientos o encontrado este grado de especificidad en sus experimentos. La respuesta puede estar en que la corteza motora es dificil de exponer, particularmente en perros, por lo que parece que en esos experimentos anteriores se había expuesto la corteza sobre areas no motoras y después de fallar en producir el movimiento, los experimentalistas no prosiguieron estimulando otras áreas.

Después de estos experimentos se supo poco sobre Fritsch, mientras Hitzig continuó sus experimentos en perros y monos. Posteriormento esos resultados fueron obtenidos en humanos y a partir de entonces quedó claro que la corteza cerebral de los mamíferos tiene un área, llamada corteza motora primaria, que cuando es estimulada inicia movimientos en regiones contralaterales del cuerpo.

Fritsch, G., and E. Hitzig. 1870. Über die elektrische Erregbarkeit des Grosshirns. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie, 300-332. In: G. von Bonin, Some papers on the Cerebral Cortex. Traducido como, "On the electrical excitability of the cerebrum." Springfield, Il.: Charles C. Thomas, 1960. Pp. 73-96.

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Gustav Fritsch (1838-1927) Fig. 1. Retrato de Gustav Fritsch. Gustav Fritsch nació el 5 de marzo de 1838 en Cottbus, hijo de un oficial menor del gobierno de Prusia. A la edad de 19 años decidió estudiar fisiología con Johannes Müller en Berlin, pero como este murió ese mismo año (1875), Fritsch hizo una carrera militar y después estudió medicina en las Universidades de Berlín, Brealau y Heidelberg.

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1906 - Santiago Ramón y Cajal recibe el premio Nobel por su contribución a la comprensión de la estructura del sistema nervioso y a la idea de la neurona como unidad funcional. La contribución más destacada a la neurociencia moderna, la doctrina de la neurona y el principio de polarización dinámica

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1920s - El desarrollo de la electroencefalografía (EEG) dio a los científicos la capacidad de cuantificar la actividad eléctrica del cerebro y proporcionó una herramienta vital para investigar la actividad mental y los ritmos cerebrales.

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1960s - El trabajo de George A. Miller sobre la capacidad de la memoria a corto plazo (comúnmente conocido como "The Magical Number Seven") sentó las bases para las teorías del procesamiento cognitivo de la información.

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George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 - July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the development of WordNet, an online word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He authored the paper, " The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two," in which he observed that many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity. This paper is frequently cited by psychologists and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science.

Miller began his career when the reigning theory in psychology was behaviorism, which eschewed the study of mental processes and focused on observable behavior. Rejecting this approach, Miller devised experimental techniques and mathematical methods to analyze mental processes, focusing particularly on speech and language. Working mostly at Harvard University, MIT and Princeton University, he went on to become one of the founders of psycholinguistics and was one of the key figures in founding the broader new field of cognitive science, circa 1978. He collaborated and co-authored work with other figures in cognitive science and psycholinguistics, such as Noam Chomsky. For moving psychology into the realm of mental processes and for aligning that move with information theory, computation theory, and linguistics, Miller is considered one of the great twentieth-century psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Miller as the 20th most cited psychologist of that era.

Miller was born on February 3, 1920, in Charleston, West Virginia, the son of George E. Miller, a steel company executive and Florence (Armitage) Miller. Soon after his birth, his parents divorced, and he lived with his mother during the Great Depression, attending public school and graduating from Charleston High School in 1937. He moved with his mother and stepfather to Washington D.C. and attended George Washington University for a year. His family practiced Christian Science, which required turning to prayer, rather than medical science, for healing. After his stepfather was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama, Miller transferred to the University of Alabama.

At the University of Alabama he took courses in phonetics, voice science, and speech pathology, earning his bachelor's degree in history and speech in 1940, and a master's in a speech in 1941. Membership in the Drama club had fostered his interest in courses in the Speech Department. He was also influenced by Professor Donald Ramsdell, who introduced him both to psychology, and, indirectly through a seminar, to his future wife Katherine James. They married on November 29, 1939. Katherine died in January 1996. He married Margaret Ferguson Skutch Page in 2008.

Miller taught the course "Introduction to Psychology" at Alabama for two years. He enrolled in the Ph.D. program in psychology at Harvard University in 1943, after coming to the university in 1942. At Harvard he worked in Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, under the supervision of Stanley Smith Stevens, researching military voice communications for the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He received his doctorate in 1946; his doctoral thesis, "The Optimal Design of Jamming Signals," was classified top secret by the US Army.

After receiving his doctorate, Miller stayed at Harvard as a research fellow, continuing his research on speech and hearing. He was appointed an assistant professor of psychology in 1948. The course he developed on language and communication eventually led to his first major book, Language and communication (1951). He took a sabbatical in 1950, and spent a year as a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, to pursue his interest in mathematics. Miller befriended J. Robert Oppenheimer, with whom he played squash. In 1951, Miller joined MIT as an associate professor of psychology. He led the psychology group at the MIT Lincoln Lab and worked on voice communication and human engineering. A notable outcome of this research was his identification of the minimal voice features of speech required for it to be intelligible. Based on this work, in 1955, he was invited to talk at the Eastern Psychological Association. That presentation, "The magical number seven, plus or minus two", was later published as a paper which went on to be a legendary one in cognitive psychology.

Miller moved back to Harvard as a tenured associate professor in 1955 and became a full professor in 1958, expanding his research into how language affects human cognition. At the university, he met a young Noam Chomsky, another of the founders of cognitive science. They spent a summer together at Stanford, where their two families shared a house. In 1958-59, Miller took leave to join the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto, California, (now at Stanford University). There he collaborated with Eugene Galanter and Karl Pribram on the book Plans and the Structure of Behavior. In 1960, along with Jerome S. Bruner, he co-founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard. The cognitive term was a break from the then-dominant school of behaviorism, which insisted cognition was not fit for scientific study. The center attracted such notable visitors as Jean Piaget, Alexander Luria and Chomsky. Miller then became the chair of the psychology department. Miller was instrumental at the time for recruiting Timothy Leary to teach at Harvard. Miller knew Leary from the University of Alabama, where Miller was teaching psychology and Leary graduated with an undergraduate degree from the department.[citation needed ]

In 1967, Miller taught at Rockefeller University for a year, as a visiting professor, From 1968 to 1979, he was Professor at the Rockefeller and continued as Adjunct Professor there from 1979 to 1982. Following the election of a new president at Rockefeller Miller moved to Princeton University as the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology. At Princeton he helped to found (in 1986) the Cognitive Science Laboratory, and also directed the McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Science.. Eventually, he became a professor emeritus and senior research psychologist at Princeton.

Miller had honorary doctorates from the University of Sussex (1984), Columbia University (1980), Yale University (1979), Catholic University of Louvain (1978), Carnegie Mellon University (in humane letters, 2003), and an honorary DSC from Williams College (2000). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957, the National Academy of Sciences in 1962, the presidency of the Eastern Psychological Association in 1962, the presidency of the American Psychological Association in 1969, and to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. Miller was the keynote speaker at the first convention of the Association for Psychological Science in 1989. He was a Fulbright research fellow at Oxford University in 1964-65, and in 1991, received the National Medal of Science.

In his later years, Miller enjoyed playing golf. He died in 2012 at his home in Plainsboro, New Jersey of complications of pneumonia and dementia. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife Margaret; the children from his first marriage: son Donnally James and daughter Nancy Saunders; two stepsons, David Skutch and Christopher Skutch; and three grandchildren: Gavin Murray-Miller, Morgan Murray-Miller and Nathaniel James Miller.

Miller began his career in a period during which behaviorism dominated research psychology. It was argued that observable processes are the proper subject matter of science, that behavior is observable and mental processes are not. Thus, mental processes were not a fit topic for study. Miller disagreed. He and others such Jerome Bruner and Noam Chomsky founded the field of Cognitive Psychology, which accepted the study of mental processes as fundamental to an understanding of complex behavior. In succeeding years, this cognitive approach largely replaced behaviorism as the framework governing research in psychology.

From the days of William James, psychologists had distinguished short-term from long-term memory. While short-term memory seemed to be limited, its limits were not known. In 1956, Miller put a number on that limit in the paper "The magical number seven, plus or minus two". He derived this number from tasks such as asking a person to repeat a set of digits, presenting a stimulus and a label and requiring recall of the label, or asking the person to quickly count things in a group. In all three cases, Miller found the average limit to be seven items. He later had mixed feelings about this work, feeling that it had been often been misquoted, and he jokingly suggested that he was being persecuted by an integer. Miller invented the term chunk to characterize the way that individuals could cope with this limitation on memory, effectively reducing the number of elements by grouping them. A chunk might be a single letter or a familiar word or even a larger familiar unit. These and related ideas strongly influenced the budding field of cognitive psychology.

For many years starting from 1986, Miller directed the development of WordNet, a large computer-readable electronic reference usable in applications such as search engines, which was created by a team that included Christiane Fellbaum, among others. Wordnet is a large lexical database representing human semantic memory in English. Its fundamental building block is a synset, which is a collection of synonyms representing a concept or idea. Words can be in multiple synsets. The entire class of synsets is grouped into nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs separately, with links existing only within these four major groups but not between them. Going beyond a thesaurus, WordNet also includes inter-word relationships such as part/whole relationships and hierarchies of inclusion.Although not intended to be a dictionary, Wordnet did have many short definitions added to it as time went on. Miller and colleagues had planned the tool to test psycholinguistic theories on how humans use and understand words. Miller also later worked closely with entrepreneur Jeff Stibel and scientists at Simpli.com Inc., on a meaning-based keyword search engine based on WordNet. Wordnet has proved to be extremely influential on an international scale.[citation needed ] It has now been emulated by wordnets in many different languages.[citation needed ]

Miller is one of the founders of psycholinguistics, which links language and cognition in the analysis of language creation and usage. His 1951 book Language and Communication is considered seminal in the field. His later book, The Science of Words (1991) also focused on the psychology of language. Together with Noam Chomsky he published papers on the mathematical and computational aspects of language and its syntax, two new areas of study. Miller also studied the human understanding of words and sentences, a problem also faced by artificial speech-recognition technology. The book Plans and the Structure of Behavior (1960), written with Eugene Galanter and Karl H. Pribram, explored how humans plan and act, trying to extrapolate this to how a robot could be programmed to plan and act. Miller is also known for coining Miller's Law: "In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of".

Miller authored several books, many considered the first major works in their respective fields.

Language and Communication, 1951

Miller's Language and Communication was one of the first significant texts in the study of language behavior. The book was a scientific study of language, emphasizing quantitative data, and was based on the mathematical model of Claude Shannon's information theory. It used a probabilistic model imposed on a learning-by-association scheme borrowed from behaviorism, with Miller not yet attached to a pure cognitive perspective. The first part of the book reviewed information theory, the physiology and acoustics of phonetics, speech recognition and comprehension, and statistical techniques to analyze language. The focus was more on speech generation than recognition. The second part had the psychology: idiosyncratic differences across people in language use; developmental linguistics; the structure of word associations in people; use of symbolism in language; and social aspects of language use.

Reviewing the book, Charles E. Osgood classified the book as a graduate-level text based more on objective facts than on theoretical constructs. He thought the book was verbose on some topics and too brief on others not directly related to the author's expertise area. He was also critical of Miller's use of simple, Skinnerian single-stage stimulus-response learning to explain human language acquisition and use. This approach, per Osgood, made it impossible to analyze the concept of meaning, and the idea of language consisting of representational signs. He did find the book objective in its emphasis on facts over theory, and depicting clearly application of information theory to psychology.

Plans and the Structure of Behavior, 1960

In Plans and the Structure of Behavior, Miller and his co-authors tried to explain through an artificial-intelligence computational perspective how animals plan and act. This was a radical break from behaviorism which explained behavior as a set or sequence of stimulus-response actions. The authors introduced a planning element controlling such actions. They saw all plans as being executed based on input using a stored or inherited information of the environment (called the image), and using a strategy called test-operate-test-exit (TOTE). The image was essentially a stored memory of all past context, akin to Tolman's cognitive map. The TOTE strategy, in its initial test phase, compared the input against the image; if there was incongruity the operate function attempted to reduce it. This cycle would be repeated till the incongruity vanished, and then the exit function would be invoked, passing control to another TOTE unit in a hierarchically arranged scheme.

Peter Milner, in a review in the Canadian Journal of Psychology, noted the book was short on concrete details on implementing the TOTE strategy. He also critically viewed the book as not being able to tie its model to details from neurophysiology at a molecular level. Per him, the book covered only the brain at the gross level of lesion studies, showing that some of its regions could possibly implement some TOTE strategies, without giving a reader an indication as to how the region could implement the strategy.

The Psychology of Communication, 1967

Miller's 1967 work, The Psychology of Communication, was a collection of seven previously published articles. The first "Information and Memory" dealt with chunking, presenting the idea of separating physical length (the number of items presented to be learned) and psychological length (the number of ideas the recipient manages to categorize and summarize the items with). Capacity of short-term memory was measured in units of psychological length, arguing against a pure behaviorist interpretation since meaning of items, beyond reinforcement and punishment, was central to psychological length.

The second essay was the paper on magical number seven. The third, 'The human link in communication systems,' used information theory and its idea of channel capacity to analyze human perception bandwidth. The essay concluded how much of what impinges on us we can absorb as knowledge was limited, for each property of the stimulus, to a handful of items. The paper on "Psycholinguists" described how effort in both speaking or understanding a sentence was related to how much of self-reference to similar-structures-present-inside was there when the sentence was broken down into clauses and phrases. The book, in general, used the Chomskian view of seeing language rules of grammar as having a biological basis-disproving the simple behaviorist idea that language performance improved with reinforcement-and using the tools of information and computation to place hypotheses on a sound theoretical framework and to analyze data practically and efficiently. Miller specifically addressed experimental data refuting the behaviorist framework at concept level in the field of language and cognition. He noted this only qualified behaviorism at the level of cognition, and did not overthrow it in other spheres of psychology.

The Cognitive Neuroscience Society established a George A. Miller Prize in 1995 for contributions to the field. The American Psychological Association established a George A. Miller Award in 1995 for an outstanding article on general psychology. From 1987 the department of psychology at Princeton University has presented the George A. Miller prize annually to the best interdisciplinary senior thesis in cognitive science. The paper on the magical number seven continues to be cited by both the popular press to explain the liking for seven-digit phone numbers and to argue against nine-digit zip codes, and by academia, especially modern psychology, to highlight its break with the behaviorist paradigm.

Miller was considered the 20th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century in a list republished by, among others, the American Psychological Association.

Distinguished Scientific Contribution award from the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1963.

William James fellow of the American Psychological Society, 1989.

Hermann von Helmholtz award from the Cognitive Neurosciences Institute, 1989.

Gold Medal from the American Psychological Foundation in 1990.

Antonio Zampolli Prize from the European Languages Research Association, 2006.

List of Miller's books

Miller, George A.; Galanter, Eugene (1960), "Some comments on Stochastic models and psychological theories", in Arrow, Kenneth J.; Karlin, Samuel; Suppes, Patrick (eds.), Mathematical models in the social sciences, 1959: Proceedings of the first Stanford symposium, Stanford mathematical studies in the social sciences, IV, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, pp. 277-297, ISBN 9780804700214.

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George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920 - July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics.

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1976 - Primer uso público de la denominación "Neurociencia Cognitiva" por un trabajo de Gazzaniga sobre las bases biológicas de la cognición humana

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Michael S. Gazzaniga (Los Ángeles, California, 12 de diciembre de 1939 (84 años)) es profesor de psicología en la Universidad de California en Santa Bárbara, donde dirige el nuevo centro SAGE​ para el estudio de la mente.

En 1961 Gazzaniga se graduó en el Dartmouth College. En 1964 realizó un doctorado en psicobiología en el Instituto Tecnológico de California, donde trabajó bajo la dirección de Roger Wolcott Sperry, con la responsabilidad principal de iniciar la búsqueda de la división del cerebro y sus funciones. En sus trabajos posteriores ha logrado importantes avances para nuestro entendimiento de las funciones de lateralización en el cerebro y cómo los hemisferios cerebrales se comunican entre sí.

Gazzaniga ha fundado y desarrollado centros de Neurociencias Cognitivas en la Universidad de California en Davis y el Dartmouth College, supervisando el trabajo y motivando el talento de muchos jóvenes científicos. Su reciente obra de colaboración The Cognitive Neurosciences III, de MIT Press, reúne el trabajo de casi 200 científicos, y está reconocida como esencial en el campo de la neurociencia cognitiva.

En su larga carrera, también es autor de muchos libros de divulgación, y ha participado en programas televisivos​ como The Brain and the Mind, de la BBC. El 3 de marzo de 2000 participó en una sesión del "Friday Evening Discourses", histórico círculo de conferencias científicas presentadas ante la Royal Institution of Great Britain por sus miembros y que inauguró Michael Faraday en 1826.

Gazzaniga es también consejero en diversas instituciones de investigación, y miembro del President's Council on Bioethics.

Michael Gazzaniga, Das erkennende Gehirn. Entdeckungen in den Netzwerken des Geistes, Junfermann 1988, ISBN 3-87387-290-0

Michael Gazzaniga: The ethical brain, New York: Dana Press, 2005, ISBN 1-932594-01-9

Michael S. Gazzaniga, Wann ist der Mensch ein Mensch?, Antworten der Neurowissenschaft auf ethische Fragen, Patmos Verlag 07/2007, ISBN 978-3-491-36008-2

Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G.R.: Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind. W.W. Norton, 2008. 3rd Edition

Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.) The Cognitive Neurosciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The MIT Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-262-01341-3, url = https://www.hse.ru/data/2011/06/28/1216307711/Gazzaniga.%20The%20Cognitive%20Neurosciences.pdf

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Michael Gazzaniga - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

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Michael S. Gazzaniga (Los Ángeles, California, 12 de diciembre de 1939 (84 años)) es profesor de psicología en la Universidad de California en Santa Bárbara, donde dirige el nuevo centro SAGE​ para el estudio de la mente. En 1961 Gazzaniga se graduó en el Dartmouth College.

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Aunque sus ideas eventualmente se demostrarían como erróneas, Franz Joseph Gall y Johann Spurzheim desarrollaron la frenología, sugiriendo que las actividades mentales están localizadas en partes específicas del cerebro.

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James Poskett*

Revista BBC History

A mediados del siglo XIX, en un popular musical llamado "Florodora" aconsejaban: "Debes elegir a tu esposa con cuidado frenológico, pues en el reino que está debajo de su sombrero está mapeado tu futuro".

Hoy en día, la idea de que los jóvenes basen su elección de futura esposa en lo que se encuentra "debajo de su sombrero", es decir, las dimensiones de su cabeza, es ridícula.

Sin embargo, hace 150 años no era ningún chiste.

En esa época estaba en boga la "ciencia de la frenología" que declaraba que la mejor manera de leer el carácter de un individuo era a través de la forma de su cráneo.

Las colonias penitenciarias se basaban en principios frenológicos y la reina Victoria de Inglaterra le pedía a los frenólogos que inspeccionaran a sus hijos.

La frenología fue iniciada por médicos como Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), quienes creían que el cerebro está formado por numerosos órganos, cada uno vinculado a una facultad, como la benevolencia y la destructividad.

Como tal, una frente prominente, donde residían los órganos "perceptivos", indicaba un intelecto impresionante, mientras que una protuberancia en la corona era signo de un fuerte sentido de la moral.

Esas ideas ciertamente tuvieron eco.

Desde Nueva York hasta Calcuta surgieron sociedades frenológicas, y el público acudía en masa a conferencias sobre la ciencia del cráneo.

Muchos estaban convencidos de que la frenología podría hacer del mundo un lugar mejor, de varias y dispares formas, como verás a continuación.

Cómo se utilizó la frenología para...

Encontrar la esposa perfecta:

Para el soltero victoriano, elegir una esposa podía ser complicado. Sin duda, la mayoría prefería a alguien que se acomodara y conformara con sus deberes de acuerdo a una sociedad dominada por los hombres: cuidar los niños, el hogar y su marido.

Pero, ¿cómo evitar casarse con una "rebelde"?

"La frenología popular de Coombe", publicada en 1841, explicaba: "Uno de los primeros requisitos en una buena esposa es verificar que tenga una buena cabeza".

Dos órganos frenológicos eran importantes: la 'filoprogenidad', que producía afecto por los niños y aseguraba que la futura esposa sería una buena madre; y la 'amatividad', que controlaba el deseo sexual -muy poco, y la noche de bodas no sería agradable; demasiado, y corrían el riesgo de ser cornudos-.

En una sociedad en la que se creía que la sexualidad femenina debía regularse cuidadosamente, los manuales frenológicos sobre el matrimonio resultaron increíblemente populares.

Semanalmente, en la prisión de mujeres de Nueva York se celebraba una conferencia frenológica.

La matrona, la señora Farnham, había decidido que la Biblia no le estaba haciendo mucho bien a las internas, así que comenzó a leer en voz alta "La Constitución del Hombre", la exposición clásica de George Combe sobre los méritos de la frenología.

Pronto, otros reformadores en Europa y Australia siguieron su ejemplo y recurrieron a la frenología para rehabilitar a la creciente población carcelaria.

Todo esto fue parte de un cambio más amplio en las actitudes hacia el crimen en el siglo XIX.

Muchos habían empezado a considerar el castigo físico como ineficaz, una reliquia de una era pasada. En lugar de ejecuciones y azotes, los criminales necesitaban ser reformados.

Las nuevas cárceles se convirtieron en los marcadores de una sociedad civilizada moderna.

¿Pero qué caracterizaba a la mente criminal? ¿Y cómo podría arreglarse? Con la frenología.

Farnham explicaba que el desarrollo del cerebro distinguía a los criminales del resto de la población.

Un gran órgano de "a dquisición", que quedaba justo encima de la oreja, aumentaba la tentación de robar.

Eso era particularmente problemático si se combinaba con una protuberancia alrededor del área asociada con la "c onciencia".

La idea era que si los internos entendían cómo funcionaban sus cerebros, podrían practicar más autocontrol.

Educar a los 'débiles de mente':

La primera "escuela frenológica" del mundo se creó en Calcuta en 1825, una creación del cirujano George Murray Paterson de la Compañía de las Indias Orientales.

Estaba obsesionado con la maleabilidad del cerebro y sospechaba que la educación podía cambiar la organización física de la mente.

Cada mañana, a los alumnos bengalíes les medían la cabeza con un par de calibradores.

Después de seis meses, Paterson descubrió que las áreas del cerebro asociadas con el intelecto, en la parte frontal de la cabeza, aparentemente habían mostrado una gran mejoría.

Esto supuestamente apoyaba la creencia colonial típicamente racista de que los indios eran degenerados y débiles; se pensaba que sólo la educación y la cultura británicas podían convertirlos en sujetos civilizados.

Justificar la esclavitud y su abolición:

Charles Caldwell era esclavo y frenólogo, lo cual no era inusual.

La frenología encontró simpatizantes en todo Estados Unidos en el siglo XIX, y particularmente entre los propietarios de plantaciones del sur. Proporcionó una aparente justificación para la esclavitud, supuestamente basada en las últimas teorías científicas.

Caldwell, un médico de Kentucky, ayudó a popularizar el tema en el sur. En la década de 1820 viajó por el río Mississippi a Nueva Orleans en giras de conferencias.

Según Caldwell, los órganos intelectuales de los africanos eran pequeños. Estos, combinados con grandes órganos animales, hacían que no fueran aptos para ser libres.

Lo fascinante fue la respuesta de los abolicionistas.

En lugar de rechazar la frenología, muchos abolicionistas pensaron que podría usarse para ayudar a su causa.

Según ellos, las cabezas de los africanos mostraban signos de "mejoría" cuando los esclavos recibían una educación adecuada.

Eso contradecía las afirmaciones de hombres como Caldwell, quienes sostenían que los africanos nunca alcanzarían "una igualdad con los caucásicos".

Para los que sufrían en carne propia la esclavitud, hasta el argumento abolicionista sonaba mal.

El afroamericano James McCune Smith, nacido esclavo en Nueva York, escribió que los abolicionistas blancos y los dueños de esclavos eran igual de culpables, ambos suscritos a la "falacia de la frenología".

Comenzar una revolución:

Gustav von Struve fue el editor de Zeitschrift für Phrenologie, una revista frenológica publicada en Heidelberg, Alemania.

En la década de 1840, Struve vinculó la frenología con sus apasionadas campañas políticas. Quería establecer la democracia en Europa y acabar con el poder de los príncipes despóticos.

En 1848, el año en el que una ola de revoluciones se extendió por Europa, Struve decidió que estaba cansado de esperar.

Struve se unió al Levantamiento de Hecker en Baden, decidido a lograr un cambio político por cualquier medio.

"La frenología está en el fondo de todos mis actos", explicó Struve en medio de la violenta rebelión.

Para él, esta nueva ciencia mental demostraba que todos los hombres y mujeres, ricos y pobres, estaban sujetos a las mismas leyes de la naturaleza.

Como tales, hombres como Leopold I, el Gran Duque de Baden, no tenían derecho a decirle a las masas qué hacer.

Frenológicamente, los pueblos de Europa tenían derecho a gobernarse a sí mismos.

Struve no fue el único frenólogo revolucionario.

En Francia, los partidarios de la Revolución de julio de 1830 fundaron la Sociedad Frenológica de París.

En la década de 1870, en India, la frenología fue adoptada por los nacionalistas anticoloniales que luchaban contra las injusticias del gobierno británico.

Y a principios del siglo XX, los primeros libros frenológicos chinos se publicaron a raíz de la revolución de 1911.

Entretener a las masas:

Más de 6 millones de personas visitaron la Gran Exposición en Hyde Park, Londres, en 1851.

El Palacio de Cristal albergó todos los triunfos de la era victoriana.

Los interesados ​​en las ciencias tenían a su disposición, entre otras maravillas, una colección completa de bustos frenológicos. Eran obra de un artesano llamado William Bally, un popular profesor de Manchester.

Los bustos de Bally eran únicos, pues los hizo en miniatura, lo suficientemente pequeños como para caber en el bolsillo y llevarlos a casa como un recuerdo.

La colección incluía desde bustos de pintores, poetas y famosos filósofos griegos, como Aristóteles, hasta criminales.

Conferencias frenológicas y museos también atrajeron grandes multitudes.

El frenólogo George Combe realizó una gira de dos años por Estados Unidos, llenando salas de Nueva York y Filadelfia.

En París, los visitantes pagaban para ver la colección frenológica de Pierre Dumoutier en la rue de l'École-de-Médicine. El museo albergaba bustos de yeso de isleños del Pacífico y esclavos de las Indias Occidentales. Para el propietario francés, pièce de résistance de la exhibición era un busto de Napoleón Bonaparte.

Exposiciones como estas transformaron la frenología en un movimiento social y político.

La frenología era una ciencia al alcance de todos, con algo que ofrecerle desde a los reyes hasta a los que limpiaban sus palacios.

*James Poskett es historiador de ciencias, raza e imprenta en la Universidad de Cambridge.

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"Para encontrar una buena esposa, debes averiguar si tiene una buena cabeza". En el siglo XIX muchos creían que la clave para encontrar al cónyuge ideal o reformar la mente criminal estaba en la forma de sus cráneos.

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1980s - El estudio de la actividad cerebral y las funciones cognitivas ha sido revolucionado por la introducción de nuevas tecnologías de imagen del cerebro, como la resonancia magnética funcional y la tomografía por emisión de positrones.

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1988 - la Neurociencia Cognitiva se hace explícita como una disciplina nueva, con un objeto de estudio y un marco paradigmático