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Trends in the Development of Physiology of the Brain^*

^* The subject of a lecture delivered in Cambridge on 12 November 1957.

ABSTRACT

Summary and Conclusions: From the foregoing analysis of the main trends in the development of the physiology of the brain and the connections and divergencies between these trends, one can discern, I think, the perspectives of further progress in this field.

To clarify the picture we might summarize the trends and indicate their mutual relations.

1. "Analytical" physiology of the brain, initiated by the Hitzig and Fritsch experiments concerning the electrical stimulation of the motor cortex, and recently expanded into a vast province of science through the methods of modern neuronography.
   
2. Physiology of higher nervous activity, founded and developed by Pavlov and his school, and concerned with the study of the central mechanisms governing acquired animal behaviour.
   
3. Behaviouristic psychology, initiated by Thorndike, the aim of which was to investigate acquired behaviour "as such", without reference either to psychological phenomena or to nervous processes.
   

When Pavlov, having laid the foundation of the physiology of higher nervous activity in the first ten years of research in this field, engaged in establishing a theory of cortical processes, the general laws of the functioning of the central nervous system were still largely unknown. Not finding a suitable basis for his research in the neurophysiology of that time, Pavlov went his own way, and created a quite independent system of ideas and hypotheses which, he believed, was adequate to explain the experimental facts rapidly accumulating in his laboratories. Thus a theory of cortical processes was established based on principles different from those which guided the research work concerned with other parts of the nervous system and carried out in other laboratories. It should be added that Pavlov frequently made it clear that he himself did not consider his theory as a dogma non-susceptible of further discussion. On the contrary, he saw its weak points and not infrequently modified it quite drastically. How ever, he failed to substitute for it a new compact system that would adequately account for the vast wealth of facts gathered by his school.

For these reasons, Pavlov's theory of cortical processes could not play the part of a framework in the physiology of the brain, as did Sherrington's concepts—developed at about the same time—as regards the functioning of the spinal cord; thus, the physiology of higher nervous activity failed to become "assimilated" by neurophysiology as an important new branch. This involved two important consequences. On the one hand, the behaviourists, though representing a trend quite close to that of the physiology of higher nervous activity by which they were greatly influenced, declined to assimilate Pavlov's theory of cortical processes (even in spite of their not infrequent good will), and turned away altogether from the physiological approach to the problems of behaviour, going the way of formalism. On the other hand, contemporary neurophysiology became mainly "analytical" in character, dealing primarily with the architecture of the connections between particular parts of the brain, and caring but little for their functional significance.

It is obvious that this abnormal situation could not continue indefinitely. Analytical physiology being increasingly successful, its students were bound to strive to understand the functional significance of the connections they detected. As a result they have been forced to call upon the assistance of either the behaviourist, or the physiologist of higher nervous activity. This has led to a lessening in the formalistic tendency of behaviouristic psychology, which manifests itself in the term "physiological psychology". Neuro-physiologists, on the other hand, realize with increasing clarity that effective help may be forthcoming chiefly from the physiology of higher nervous activity, for The latter operates with phenomena whose physiological mechanism is more or less intelligible.

Therefore it seems to me that we are now approaching a very important era in the development of the physiology of the brain: Pavlovian physiology of the higher nervous activity, behaviouristic or physiological psychology, and analytical neurophysiology of the brain, till now rather separate and even antagonistic, are beginning to merge and their respective students are beginning to understand each other. The study of the cerebral functions will no doubt continue to be the most difficult and the least accessible branch of physiology, but there are grounds for hoping that the factors obstructing its progress will eventually be removed.