Lambert Kelly G
Department of Psychology, Copley Science Center, Randolph-Macon College, P.O. Box 5005, Ashland, VA 23005, USA.
Physiol Behav. 2003 Aug;79(3):343-9. doi: 10.1016/s0031-9384(03)00147-1.
Working as a physician, Paul MacLean's interests moved in the direction of the brain when he realized that most of his patients suffered from symptoms (e.g. anxiety, sleeping problems) that could not be traced to a known physiological cause. His curiosity about the neurological origins of these psychological symptoms led him to the laboratories of Stanley Cobb and James Papez, both of whom were influential in guiding MacLean's interests toward the temporal lobe. His neurobiological interest was not contained, however, to the temporal lobe. As his own family grew to include a wife and five children, his scholarly pursuits extended to social and familial relations and their accompanying underlying neuroanatomical circuits (i.e. the thalamocingulate system). Viewing the brain and behavior from an evolutionary perspective, MacLean introduced the concept of the "triune brain" to describe the evolutionarily distinct components of the mammalian brain and reintroduced Broca's term "limbic" to describe a neuroanatomical system involved in emotional functions. MacLean wrote that the development of social behaviors, such as mother-infant audiovocal communication and the separation cry of the offspring, served as the driving force in the evolution of the neocortex. MacLean's neuroevolutionary perspective and appreciation of the complexity and evolutionary significance of social systems offer valuable insights into the contemporary fields of behavioral neuroscience and biological psychiatry.
作为一名医生，保罗·麦克莱恩的兴趣转向了大脑，因为他意识到他的大多数病人所遭受的症状（如焦虑、睡眠问题）无法追溯到已知的生理原因。他对这些心理症状的神经学起源的好奇心使他来到了斯坦利·科布和詹姆斯·帕佩兹的实验室，这两人都对引导麦克莱恩关注颞叶起到了重要作用。然而，他的神经生物学兴趣并不局限于颞叶。随着他自己的家庭逐渐壮大，有了妻子和五个孩子，他的学术追求扩展到了社会和家庭关系以及与之相伴的潜在神经解剖回路（即丘脑扣带回系统）。从进化的角度看待大脑和行为，麦克莱恩引入了“三位一体大脑”的概念来描述哺乳动物大脑在进化上不同的组成部分，并重新引入了布罗卡的术语“边缘系统”来描述一个涉及情感功能的神经解剖系统。麦克莱恩写道，社会行为的发展，如母婴视听交流和后代的分离啼哭，是新皮层进化的驱动力。麦克莱恩的神经进化观点以及对社会系统复杂性和进化意义的认识，为当代行为神经科学和生物精神病学领域提供了宝贵的见解。
