Reflex theory, cautionary tale: misleading simplicity in early neuroscience

This paper takes an integrated history and philosophy of science approach to the topic of "simplicity out of complexity". The reflex theory was a framework within early twentieth century psychology and neuroscience which aimed to decompose complex behaviours and neural responses into simple reflexes. It was controversial in its time, and did not live up to its own theoretical and empirical ambitions. Examination of this episode poses important questions about the limitations of simplifying strategies, and the relationship between simplification and the engineering approach to biology.

Color and Sound in Balzac's Novels

This paper analyzes the dramatic color of Honore de Balzac's novels "Shagreen" (1831) and "Father Goriot" (1834). Using symbolic colors, different color details and motives, color and light accents, decoloration Balzac creates dramatic contrasts, transforms the time, reveals the inner state of the characters. The writer's works are the result of the brilliant application of the reflex theory to literature suggested by Eugene Delacroix, a painter and Balzac's contemporary. Artistic intensity and the diversity of color elements in Balzac's novels are one of the vivid steps on the way to the chromatic and not just color cinema as Eisenstein wrote. The correlation of prose and film was one of the main subjects of Nina Anosova's research. A talented literary and film scholar and teacher, a Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and Histroy Institute (IFLI) graduate, she spent over 55 years teaching at VGIK. Such prominent filmmakers as Marlene Khutsiev, Andrei Tarkovsky, Vasily Shukshin, Gennady Shpalikov, Yuri Arabov, Karen Shakhnazarov, Vadim Abdrashitov, Sergey Loznitsa, etc. were among her pupils. The students and graduates of the Institute of Cinematography constantly turn to her works, learning real (deep) analysis and understanding of literature and art.

Love-Hate for Man-Machine Metaphors in Soviet Physiology: From Pavlov to “Physiological Cybernetics”

ArgumentEvery new level achieved by technology attracted the attention of physiologists and turned their thoughts in a new direction; they often unwittingly modeled life processes in the image of contemporary engineering achievements.–(Nikolay Bernshteyn [1958] 1997, 392)This article reinterprets the debate between orthodox followers of the Pavlovian reflex theory and Soviet “cybernetic physiologists” in the 1950s and 60s as a clash of opposing man-machine metaphors. While both sides accused each other of “mechanistic,” reductionist methodology, they did not see anything “mechanistic” about their own central metaphors: the telephone switchboard metaphor for nervous activity (the Pavlovians), and the analogies between the human body and a servomechanism and between the human brain and a computer (the cyberneticians). I argue that the scientific utility of machine analogies was closely intertwined with their philosophical and political meanings and that new interpretations of these metaphors emerged as a result of political conflicts and a realignment of forces within the scientific community and in society at large. I suggest that the constant travel of man-machine analogies back and forth between physiology and technology has blurred the traditional categories of the “mechanistic” and the “organic” in Soviet neurophysiology, as perhaps in the history of physiology in general.

Self-organisation or reflex theory?

Neuromodelling is one of the techniques of modern neurosciences. The “at a distance” type of triadic synapse is probably the prevailing form of impulse transmission in many parts of the brain. If the genetically controlled cell-to-cell neuronal interconnections are abandoned, self-organisation may be the mechanism of structure formation in the brain. This assumption weakens the position of the reflex arc as the basic functional unit of nervous activities.

Brain mechanisms underlying basic affective processes

According to the classical psycho-physiological theories, human and animal behaviour are dictated by inborn or acquired motivation. The sight of a serpent for example, is an inborn motivation for flight and fear in a dog, but the fear of a policeman, on the other hand, is an acquired motivation in humans. Acquired or derived motivations result from conditioning or associative procedures that come under the general heading of reflex theory. This does not take into account the notion of subjectivity, which subordinates the state to an act whose motive can always be traced back to the satisfaction of an inborn need of the species. But can we always talk about vital needs or acts that have been learnt when we see certain ways of behaving which cannot be explained or justified by any utility?

Characteristics of milk ejection, associated intramammary pressure changes and oxytocin release in the mare

ABSTRACT The neuroendocrine reflex theory of milk ejection was investigated in the horse under natural suckling conditions. To this end 12 lactating mares were provided with acute jugular catheters and with intramammary pressure (IMP) recording catheters. The foal had free access to the contralateral mammary complex. Intramammary pressure could thus be recorded while blood was drawn simultaneously for oxytocin analysis from the undisturbed animal. Suckling periods associated with a characteristic increase in IMP lasted significantly longer than unsuccessful nursing attempts. Elements of successful sucklings involved physical stimulation of the mammary gland, a quiet phase and a sudden increase in IMP. Successful suckling took place at about 20-min intervals with a wide range from < 5 min to > 100 min. Between 5 and 10 mU oxytocin i.v. were sufficient to evoke an increase in IMP identical in shape and duration to a naturally induced increase in IMP. Mean peak oxytocin levels reached 15·8 pmol/l plasma, with a maximal release of 39 pmol/l. In the majority of cases (> 80%) peak oxytocin release did not occur until after the increase in IMP; in some cases an oxytocin surge was not detectable at all, despite a milk ejection-associated increase in IMP. In three cases increase in IMP could be observed while the foals were away from the mother with no signs of any intention to suckle. The data indicate that in the horse some elements of the neuroendocrine reflex, such as tactile stimulation of the teat and a surge of oxytocin before an increase in IMP, are facultative and not essential for normal milk ejection. J. Endocr. (1988) 119, 219–227