The President’s broadcast on 6 March 1952 on Sir Charles Sherrington (1857-1952)

Sir Charles Sherrington took his medical degree nearly seventy years ago, when, as he once said, all the professors and lecturers wore beards or side whiskers ; and one of his first undertakings was a visit to Spain in 1885 to study an outbreak of cholera. After that he settled down to research on the brain and the nerves, and he went on with this till he retired from his professorship at Oxford seventeen years ago. What he did was to give us an entirely new outlook on the working of the nervous system, the way in which the sense organs are linked to the brain and the brain to the muscles to form the great controlling apparatus of the body, the intelligence system and headquarters which direct every movement we make : so that we keep our balance on two legs and go where we want and behave, in fact, like living people. For instance, one of the first things he found out was that there is a signalling arrangement in every muscle which keeps its movement under control by sending back information to the nervous system about the force the muscle is exerting at each moment. Nowadays we call this a feed-back mechanism ; its importance in our own bodies has become more and more obvious because the same kind of arrangement is now used by engineers for controlling the movement of heavy machinery.

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Umar Faruque

This study traces the notion of the internal senses in three ancient authors, namely Nemesius, Plotinus and Galen. It begins with Nemesius, and then by going backward ends with Galen. The textual evidence investigated in this study shows clearly that Galen, after acknowledging the Platonic tripartite soul, locates the various dunameis of the soul in the brain. The “localization” theory of Galen plays a crucial role in paving the way for the foundation of the internal senses, which both Plotinus and Nemesius adapted. Just as with the external senses one can locate various sense-organs in different parts of the body, viz., touch, smell, sight etc., so too with the internal senses, thanks to Galen, one is able to locate them in various organs of the body. Thus philosophers are able to explain the role of all these different (internal) senses in their account of sense-perception.


Parasitology ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolen Rees

1. The structure of the proboscides of the larva of Dibothriorhynchus grossum (Rud.) is described. Each proboscis is provided with four sets of extrinsic muscles, and there is an anterior dorso-ventral muscle mass connected to all four proboscides.2. The musculature of the body and scolex is described.3. The nervous system consists of a brain, two lateral nerve cords, two outer and inner anterior nerves on each side, twenty-five pairs of bothridial nerves to each bothridium, four longitudinal bothridial nerves connecting these latter before their entry into the bothridia, four proboscis nerves arising from the brain, and a series of lateral nerves supplying the lateral regions of the body.4. The so-called ganglia contain no nerve cells, these are present only in the posterior median commissure which is therefore the nerve centre.


Author(s):  
Luis Raul Meza Mendoza ◽  
María Elena Moya Martinez ◽  
Angelica Maria Sabando Suarez

Since the beginning of humanity, an attempt has been made to explain the way in which man acquires knowledge, the way in which he assimilates, processes and executes it in order to develop the teaching-learning process that people need throughout of his life, which forces to change the learning schemes using new study methodologies, such as neuroscience, which is a discipline that studies the functioning of the brain, the relationship of neurons to the formation of synapses creating immediate responses which transmits to the body voluntarily and involuntarily, in addition to controlling the central and peripheral nervous system with their respective functions. It is necessary to change the traditional scheme and implement new strategies that allow the teacher to venture into neuroscience, in order to individually understand the different learning processes that students do. As some authors of neuroscience say, the brain performs processes of acquisition, storage and evocation of information, which form new knowledge schemes that generate changes in the attitude of the human being, for this reason teachers are responsible for taking advantage of what It is known about the multiple functions of the brain and be clear about the various ways of acquiring knowledge.


Author(s):  
Georgia E. Hodes

In the late 20th century, the discovery that the immune system and central nervous system were not autonomous revolutionized exploration of the mechanisms by which stress contributes to immune disorders and immune regulation contributes to mental illness. There is increasing evidence of stress as integrated across the brain and body. The immune system acts in concert with the peripheral nervous system to shape the brain’s perception of the environment. The brain in turn communicates with the endocrine and immune systems to guide their responses to that environment. Examining the groundwork of mechanisms governing communication between the body and brain will hopefully provide a better understanding of the ontogeny and symptomology of some mood disorders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
Rohit Rastogi ◽  
Mamta Saxena ◽  
Devendra K. Chaturvedi ◽  
Mayank Gupta ◽  
Akshit Rajan Rastogi ◽  
...  

Our entire body, including the brain and nervous system, works with the help of various kinds of biological stuff which includes positively charged ions of elements like sodium, potassium, and calcium. The different body parts have different energy levels, and by measuring the energy level, we can also measure the fitness of an individual. Moreover, this energy and fitness are directly related to mental health and the signals being transmitted between the brain and other parts of the body. Various activities like walking, talking, eating, and thinking are performed with the help of these transmission signals. Another critical role played by them is that it helps in examining the mechanisms of cells present at various places in the human body and signaling the nervous system and brain if they are properly functioning or not. This manuscript is divided into two parts where, in the first part, it provides the introduction, background, and extensive literature survey on Kirlian experiments to measure the human's organ energy.


Author(s):  
Michael Trimble

This chapter discusses the clinical necessity from which the intersection of neurology and psychiatry arose, exploring different eras and their associated intellectual milestones in order to understand the historical framework of contemporary neuropsychiatry. Identifying Hippocrates’ original acknowledgement of the relation of the human brain to epilepsy as a start point, the historical development of the field is traced. This encompasses Thomas Willis and his nascent descriptions of the limbic system, the philosophical and alchemical strides of the Enlightenment, and the motivations behind the Romantic era attempts to understand the brain. It then follows the growth of the field through the turn of the twentieth century, in spite of the prominence of psychoanalysis and the idea of the brainless mind, and finally the understanding of the ‘integrated action’ of the body and nervous system, which led to the integration of psychiatry and neurology, allowing for the first neuropsychiatric examinations of epilepsy.


Philosophies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Kevin Warwick

In this article, a practical look is taken at some of the possible enhancements for humans through the use of implants, particularly into the brain or nervous system. Some cognitive enhancements may not turn out to be practically useful, whereas others may turn out to be mere steps on the way to the construction of superhumans. The emphasis here is the focus on enhancements that take such recipients beyond the human norm rather than any implantations employed merely for therapy. This is divided into what we know has already been tried and tested and what remains at this time as more speculative. Five examples from the author’s own experimentation are described. Each case is looked at in detail, from the inside, to give a unique personal experience. The premise is that humans are essentially their brains and that bodies serve as interfaces between brains and the environment. The possibility of building an Interplanetary Creature, having an intelligence and possibly a consciousness of its own, is also considered.


Author(s):  
Matthew Wilson Smith

Wagnerites and anti-Wagnerites frequently agreed at least in this: that the novelty of Wagner’s art was that it was directed first and foremost at the nerves. And it was not simply audience members who understood Wagner’s music dramas as essentially neural; it was also Wagner himself. Critics have long appreciated the importance of Wagner’s Beethoven essay of 1870, an essay that theorizes Wagner’s late movement toward “inner drama” and toward the dominance of music over text. Largely unappreciated, however, is the central importance of the neurological sciences in this transition; what Wagner aimed at in this essay was not simply the inner drama of the psyche but also—and inextricably—the inner drama of the body: that is, the drama of the brain and the nervous system. It is this profoundly neuropsychological understanding of art that drives Wagner’s late work—above all his final music drama, Parsifal.


1951 ◽  
Vol 97 (409) ◽  
pp. 792-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Crome

The problems of the interdependence and unity of the brain and body have been put on a scientific basis by Pavlov and his successors. Bykov (1947) has, for example, been able to demonstrate that the cortex plays a leading part in the regulation of somatic processes, such as secretion of urine, blood pressure, peristalsis and metabolism. It is therefore reasonable to argue that lesions of the central nervous system will be reflected in the pathogenesis and course of morbid processes in the body. It does not follow, however, that this influence will necessarily be in the direction of greater lability, more rapid pathogenesis or more extensive destruction. The outstanding feature of the central nervous system is its plasticity and power of compensation. It is therefore possible and probable that those parts of the nervous system which remain intact will take over and compensate for the function of the lost ones. Emotion may, for example, lead to polyuria, but it does not follow that urinary secretion will be impaired in a leucotomized patient. The brain may well play an important part in the infective processes of a normal person, but the defence against infection in a microcephalic idiot may remain perfectly adequate, and may even be more effective than in a normal person, provided that the mechanism of the immunity and phagocytosis had been more fully mobilized in the course of his previous life.


Author(s):  
Sonali Rathod

Sleep restores energy to the body and provides relaxation particularly to the nervous system. It helps in building and restoring the control of the brain and nervous system over the muscles glands and other body systems. Nidra (Sleep) has its important role in healthy life.  The word Nidranasha denotes the phase of devoid of sleep which itself is the main Lakshana of this condition. Ayurveda indicates psychological respite as key along with Vataghna treatment in managing insomnia. Entire management is prescribed in the form of specific procedures, psychiatric treatment, drugs and Diet.


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