Journal of the history of the neurosciences
January 1, 2026
Ricardo Serrado
In nineteenth-century Portugal, physicians Miguel Bombarda, Júlio de Matos, and Bettencourt Raposo debated consciousness and free will as biological advances challenged the soul as a regulating principle. Bombarda defended a materialist view, arguing free will is merely neuronal activity producing the feeling of freedom. Matos embraced determinism, rejecting absolute freedom but allowing behavioral modulation through education and effort, creating an unstable compatibilist position. Raposo advanced a naturalistic view where the brain constitutes will and desire, leaving no room for genuine freedom. The article examines how determinism, materialism, and positivism shaped medical thought on consciousness and free will within a naturalistic framework.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
January 1, 2026
Brendan P Lucey
In the mid-twentieth century, comparative neuroanatomist C. Judson Herrick and neurophysiologist George Bishop corresponded about the relationship between brain structure and consciousness. Herrick analyzed how increasing structural complexity across species corresponded with more complex behavior. Bishop advanced understanding of nerve fiber function through his work on nerve action potentials. Together they explored how older, primitive brain structures facilitate higher functions and emphasized the interconnectedness of brain regions. Their dialogue did not resolve how brain structure produces complex behaviors but highlighted the importance of evolutionary and comparative perspectives in understanding brain function.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
January 1, 2024
Alan Baumeister
Physicalism, the view that mental phenomena are entirely describable in physical terms, has failed to account for aspects of mind like subjective experience. Emergentism, developed in the early 1920s, offers an alternative: higher-order phenomena such as life and mind arise from physical reality yet remain autonomous from it. This article traces the historical and philosophical development of emergentist ideas, especially their treatment in neuroscience.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
January 1, 2019
Richard Leblanc
Wilder Penfield, renowned for his work on epilepsy and brain mapping, also developed a theory of the mind-brain relationship based on electrical stimulation of the cortex in conscious patients. He proposed that consciousness and mind arise from the centrencephalic integrating system, a network of bidirectional pathways connecting the upper brainstem, thalami, and cerebral cortex. This system was the physical basis for memory, perception, will, and judgment. Although Penfield considered his attempt to unify brain and mind a failure, his insights anticipated the reticular activating system and advanced understanding of memory's link to mesial temporal structures and temporal cortex.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
September 1, 2005
C U M Smith
Several prominent physicists in the early twentieth century, inspired by revolutions in their own field, moved into biology and helped launch molecular biology in the 1950s. Two decades later, some of these migrants and their followers turned to the nervous system, consciousness, and the mind-body problem. This paper reviews that "double migration" and argues that while no new physical principles were discovered in biology or neuroscience, the physicists' analytical mindset proved invaluable. The concept of the gene was transformed from a mysterious entity to a real molecular object, and similar progress has been made on neural gates and channels. Understanding at the molecular level sharpens the mind-body problem by defining the material substrate of consciousness.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
June 1, 2005
Luis-Carlos Alvaro
Maupassant, a 19th-century realist writer, incorporated vivid visual hallucinations and perceptual disturbances into his fantastical short stories. Analysis of four stories reveals neurological phenomena: nightmares, sleep paralysis, hemianopic vision loss and recovery, palinopsia, illusory object movement, autoscopy, and hypnagogic hallucinations. Although Maupassant suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis that caused visual loss and hallucinations before his death, similar hallucinatory symptoms appear in stories written at age 25, when he was allegedly healthy. This suggests his hypersensitive disposition, not pathology alone, enabled these experiences. Drug abuse and attendance at Charcot's lectures also contributed to his detailed visual depictions.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences
January 1, 1995
F Schiller
The pineal gland, a small brain structure, has historically been linked to sexuality, mysticism, and the mind-body problem, including Descartes' view of it as the seat of the soul. The article traces its role in the development of endocrinology and neurosurgery, examining its histology, function as a gland, and comparative anatomy as a 'third eye.' Calcifications of the gland aided radiological diagnosis of brain shifts. Ongoing research continues to investigate the pineal as a 'photo-neuro-endocrine transducer.'