scholarly journals Introductory Chapter: Primates - What the Monkey Brain Tells the Human Brain

Primates ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark W. Burke ◽  
Maurice Ptito
Keyword(s):  
Gesnerus ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 96-112
Author(s):  
Semir Zeki

In 1888, Louis Verrey, a Swiss ophthalmologist, stated emphatically that there is a "centre for the chromatic sense" in the human brain and that it is located in the lingual and fusiform gyri. He did not, however, consider the “colour centre” to be a separate area but a large sub-division of the primary visual cortex. His evidence was quickly dismissed and forgotten. It was not to be taken seriously again until after the experimental discovery of functional specialization in the monkey brain. This paper considers why it is that Verrey did not consider the “colour centre” to be a separate cortical area, distinct from the primary visual cortex, why his evidence was so quickly and effectively dismissed, and why it is that Verrey did not pursue the logic of his findings.


Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Parrington

This introductory chapter begins by providing an overview of the power of the human brain, which is displayed in the wonders of modern civilization. Despite the human brain’s capacity for such intellectual and technological feats, we still know astonishingly little about how it achieves them. This deficit in understanding is a problem not only because it means we lack basic knowledge of the biological factors that underlie our human uniqueness, but also because, for all its amazing capabilities, the human mind seems particularly prone to dysfunction. Still, some would argue there is good reason to be optimistic about the prospect of developing new and better treatments for mental disorders in the not-so-distant future. Such optimism is based on the increasing potential to study how the brain works in various important new ways thanks to recent technological innovations. The chapter then considers two overly polarised views of the human mind. Ultimately, this book argues that society radically restructures the human brain within an individual person’s lifetime, and that it has also played a central role in the past history of our species, by shaping brain evolution.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Michael S. Moore

This introductory chapter lays out the dramatic challenge neuroscience is taken to issue to our sense of who and what we are and to our responsibility for our choices and for our actions. Neuroscience is seen as the newest of a series of challenges issued to the criminal law, retributivist punishment, moral blameworthiness, and the common-sense psychology all of these presuppose. Backed by a better science of the human brain, neuroscience reissues the challenges to responsibility that have long been issued by academic psychology, be that psychology introspectionist, Freudian, behaviorist, genetic, or whatever.


1965 ◽  
Vol 111 (479) ◽  
pp. 1003-1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. Rubin

Altered serum proteins in mental illness have been reported by workers in various parts of the world, and a review of these studies has led to the consideration of an autoimmune mechanism in the pathogenesis of some functional psychoses (Fessel, 1962a). Several reports have appeared in recent years which suggest the presence of antibodies in the serum of certain psychiatric patients to central nervous system tissue. Many of these have been reviewed by Vartanyan (1963). Fessel (1962b, 1963) demonstrated agglutination of latex particles coated with monkey brain extract and agglutination of tanned sheep red blood cells coated with human brain extract, but no precipitins in double diffusion in agar of the sera against monkey brain extract. As an alternative to antibrain antibodies he suggested a less specific physicochemical abnormality of the serum which caused the agglutination. Yokoyama, Trams, and Brady (1962), using a sheep red blood cell haemagglutination technique, showed the presence of anti-asialoganglioside antibodies in the sera of 3 of 14 schizophrenic patients and anti-ganglioside antibody in the serum of another. Kuznetzova and Semenov (1961), by complement fixation, demonstrated antibodies in the sera of 22 of 84 schizophrenics, mainly to human brain and not to other organs. The antibodies appeared more frequently in the later stages of the illness (Semenov, Morozov, and Kuznetzova, 1961). Skalickova and Jezkova (1961), also with a complement fixation technique, demonstrated blood and cerebrospinal fluid antibodies to grey and white matter during the “infectious” onset of schizophrenia, but not in the chronic, demented phase.


2017 ◽  
pp. 249-285
Author(s):  
Francisco Aboitiz
Keyword(s):  

Synapse ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Angeles Honrubia ◽  
M. Teresa Vilar� ◽  
Jos� M. Palacios ◽  
Guadalupe Mengod

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Steve Clarke ◽  
Julian Savulescu

Recent technological developments and potential technological developments of the near future require us to try to think clearly about what it is to have moral status and about when and why we should attribute moral status to beings and entities. What should we say about the moral status of human non-human chimeras, human brain organoids, artificial intelligence, cyborgs, post-humans, and human minds that have been uploaded into a computer, or onto the internet? In this introductory chapter we survey some key assumptions ordinarily made about moral status that may require rethinking. These include the assumptions that all humans who are not severely cognitively impaired have equal moral status, that possession of the sophisticated cognitive capacities typical of human adults is necessary for full moral status, that only humans can have full moral status, and that there can be no beings with higher moral status than ordinary adult humans. We also need to consider how we should treat beings and entities when we find ourselves uncertain about their moral status.


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