The Cerebral Cortex of Man

Title

The Cerebral Cortex of Man

Files

Description

Wilder Penfield, Theodore Rasmussen. The cerebral cortex of man. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950

This investigator briefly reviews the literature on the cerebral cortex. He discusses his observations on the stimulation of this area in conscious patients. The response is obtained most easily from the vicinity of the fissure of Rolando, but the responses were not obtained from exactly fixed areas. Penfield describes vocalization which he produced with the use of a thyratron stimulator, especially when area 12 was stimulated. Simple movements appeared to be involuntary in nature. Sensation, when produced electrically, was referred to as the periphery but unexplained. In the dream state of an epileptic patient, a hallucination was presented by discharge within one portion of the cerebral cortex, but the patient retained insight into his real environment since other portions of the cortex retained their normal functions. Penfield supports the view of Hughlings Jackson that the sensorimotor cerebral cortex represents only a middle level of integration. There seems to be no reason why the neural mechanism of consciousness should migrate outward into the newer exfoliated hemisphere with the acquisition of man's new skills and new adjustments to his environment. This level of integration may lie below the cortex and above the midbrain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) -Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 40, 417–422


Publication Date

1950

Publisher

The Macmillan Company

City

New York

Keywords

library, special collection, cerebral cortex

The Cerebral Cortex of Man

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