Leblanc Richard
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University , Montreal , Quebec , Canada.
J Hist Neurosci. 2019 Oct-Dec;28(4):416-436. doi: 10.1080/0964704X.2019.1651135. Epub 2019 Aug 27.
Wilder Penfield is justly famous for his contributions to our understanding of epilepsy and of the structure-function relationship of the brain. His theory on the relationship of the brain and mind is less well known. Based on the effects of the electrical stimulation of the cortex in conscious patients, Penfield believed that consciousness and mind are functions of what he referred to as the centrencephalic integrating system. This functional system comprised bidirectional pathways between the upper brainstem, the thalami, and the cerebral cortex of both hemispheres, and was the physical substrate from which memory, perception, initiative, will, and judgment arose. It was the source of the stream of consciousness and the physical basis of mind. This paper reviews how Penfield arrived at this conception of the mind-brain relationship. Although Penfield ultimately felt that he had failed in his attempt to unify brain and mind, his work shed new light on the relationship of memory to the mesial temporal structures and to the temporal cortex; and his association of consciousness and the brainstem preceded the conceptualization of the reticular activating system by a generation. In these, as in so many aspects of neurobiology, Penfield was prescient.
怀尔德·彭菲尔德因其对我们理解癫痫以及大脑结构与功能关系所做的贡献而闻名遐迩。他关于大脑与心智关系的理论却鲜为人知。基于对清醒患者大脑皮层进行电刺激的效果，彭菲尔德认为意识和心智是他所称的中央脑整合系统的功能。这个功能系统由上脑干、丘脑以及两个半球的大脑皮层之间的双向通路组成，是记忆、感知、主动性、意志和判断力产生的物质基础。它是意识流的源头和心智的物质基础。本文回顾了彭菲尔德是如何得出这种脑与心智关系的概念的。尽管彭菲尔德最终觉得自己在试图统一大脑和心智的尝试中失败了，但他的工作为记忆与内侧颞叶结构以及颞叶皮层的关系带来了新的认识；而且他将意识与脑干联系起来比网状激活系统的概念化早了一代人的时间。在这些方面，以及在神经生物学的诸多方面，彭菲尔德都具有先见之明。
