This summer, I am taking a course in neuroscience at Harvard Summer School. I am super excited about this course because I have always wanted to learn about neuroscience, and who can argue about taking a course at Harvard?
The study of the brain is such a fascinating subject, and I have always wanted to learn more about it. Since I am the only left-handed person in my immediate family, it has always intrigued me to learn that right and left-handedness is controlled by different sides of the brain. So my brain functions differently than everyone else in my family! At least that's what I understand. I hope to confirm this and a lot more when I actually take the class.
The brain is hands down the most complex organ of the human body. It controls so many functions- motor skills, memory, emotions to name just a few. It's no wonder it has intrigued men since the ancient times, as early as the Greeks and Hippocrates himself. In fact, it is often said that the birth of neuroscience began with Hippocrates. Hippocrates argued against common wisdom of the time that the brain was the seat of sensation, thought, emotion and cognition, rather than the heart. He first argued that the brain had to be involved with sensation because since most sensory organs like the eyes, ears and tongue are located in the head near the brain, but later also concluded the brain controlled emotions and intelligence. In his work, The Sacred Disease, he wrote:
The study of the brain is such a fascinating subject, and I have always wanted to learn more about it. Since I am the only left-handed person in my immediate family, it has always intrigued me to learn that right and left-handedness is controlled by different sides of the brain. So my brain functions differently than everyone else in my family! At least that's what I understand. I hope to confirm this and a lot more when I actually take the class.
The brain is hands down the most complex organ of the human body. It controls so many functions- motor skills, memory, emotions to name just a few. It's no wonder it has intrigued men since the ancient times, as early as the Greeks and Hippocrates himself. In fact, it is often said that the birth of neuroscience began with Hippocrates. Hippocrates argued against common wisdom of the time that the brain was the seat of sensation, thought, emotion and cognition, rather than the heart. He first argued that the brain had to be involved with sensation because since most sensory organs like the eyes, ears and tongue are located in the head near the brain, but later also concluded the brain controlled emotions and intelligence. In his work, The Sacred Disease, he wrote:
Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it, in particular, we think, see, hear, and distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, the pleasant from the unpleasant, in some cases using custom as a test, in others perceiving them from their utility. It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness, and acts that are contrary to habit. These things that we suffer all come from the brain.
This was very different from what the Egyptians believed. They considered the heart to be the seat of intelligence and emotion. In fact, they valued the brain so little that the first step in the mummification process after death was to extract the brain through the nostrils and discard it, whereas they went to great lengths to preserve the heart. Hippocrates' contemporary, Aristotle, also believed that the heart controlled the mind. The brain was merely an organ to support the working of the heart- he thought it was a radiator to cool the heart. It is to Hippocrates' credit that he changed that thinking and established the brain as the seat of intellect, sensation and emotion, thus giving birth to neuroscience.
Sources:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829112-200-the-brain-milestones-of-neuroscience/#:~:text=The%20birth%20of%20neuroscience%20began,%2C%20sensation%2C%20emotion%20and%20cognition.
https://www.loebclassics.com/view/hippocrates_cos-sacred_disease/1923/pb_LCL148.175.xml?readMode=recto#:~:text=Men%20ought%20to%20know%20that,%2C%20pains%2C%20griefs%20and%20tears.&text=But%20all%20the%20time%20the%20brain%20is%20still%20a%20man%20is%20intelligent.
https://www.slideshare.net/drpsdeb/cognitive-neuroscience-introduction-2011
https://web.stanford.edu/class/history13/earlysciencelab/body/brainpages/brain.html#:~:text=In%20the%20fourth%20century%20B.%20C.,in%20which%20spirit%20circulated%20freely.&text=His%20observations%20of%20the%20effects,practical%20basis%20for%20his%20conclusions.
Comments
Post a Comment