In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (55 page)

For a history of the cell theory and the neuron doctrine, see E. Mayr,
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1982); P. Mazzarello,
The Hidden Structure: The Scientific Biography of Camillo Golgi
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); and G. M. Shepherd,
Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Sherrington wrote about Cajal in an essay called “A memorial on Ramón y Cajal,” which appeared originally in D. F. Cannon, ed.,
Explorers of the Human Brain: The Life of Santiago Ramón y Cajal
(New York: Henry Schuman, 1949). It is reprinted in J. C. Eccles and W. C. Gibson,
Sherrington: His Life and Thought
(Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1979); “in describing what the microscope showed…” is from p. 204; “the intense anthropomorphic descriptions…” is from pp. 204–5; and “Is it too much to say of him…” is from p. 203.

Cajal’s memoir,
Recollections of My Life
, was translated in 1937 by E. H. Craigie and J. Cano, and appeared in
Am Philos. Soc. Mem
. 8; he compares cells to a “full grown forest” on pp. 324–25 and likens himself and Golgi to “Siamese twins” on p. 553. Golgi’s Nobel lecture was reprinted in his
Opera Omnia
, ed. L. Sala, E. Veratti, and G. Sala, vol. 4 (Milan: Hoepl, 1929); quotation from p. 1259; it was translated into English as “The neuron theory: Theory and facts,” in
Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine, 1901–1921
, ed. Nobel Foundation (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967).

Hodgkin wrote about scientific jealousy in his “Autobiographical essay,” in
The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography
, ed. L. R. Squire, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Society for Neuroscience, 1996); quotation from p. 254. Darwin’s remark on the same theme is from R. K. Merton, “Priorities in scientific discovery: A chapter in the sociology of science,”
Am. Soc. Rev.
22 (1957): 635–59.

For more on Sherrington’s life and research, see C. Sherrington,
The Integrative Action of the Nervous System
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1906); and R. Granit,
Charles Scott Sherrington: A Biography of the Neurophysiologist
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966).

Robert Holt’s remarks about Freud are from p. 17 of F. J. Sulloway,
Freud, Biologist of the Mind
(New York: Basic Books, 1979). Freud himself is quoted about this happy period in W. R. Everdell,
The First Moderns
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 131.

Other information for this chapter was drawn from the following:

Cajal, S. R. “The Croonian Lecture: La fine structure des centres nerveux.”
Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B 55
(1894): 444–67.

———.
Histologie du Systeme Nerveux de l’Homme et des Vertebres.
2 vols. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1909–1911. (English translation,
Histology of the Nervous System
. Translated by N. Swanson and L. W. Swanson. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.)

———.
Neuron Theory or Reticular Theory: Objective Evidence of the Anatomical Unity of Nerve Cells
. Translated by M. U. Purkiss and C. A. Fox. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1954.

———. “History of the synapse as a morphological and functional structure.” In
Golgi Centennial Symposium: Perspectives in Neurobiology
, edited by M. Santini, 39–50. New York: Raven Press, 1975.

Freud, S.
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
. Translated by James Strachey. 1933. Reprint, New York: W.W. Norton, 1965.

Kandel, E. R., J. H. Schwartz, and T. M. Jessell.
Principles of Neural Science
. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Katz, B.
Electrical Excitation of Nerve
. London: Oxford University Press, 1939.

Reuben, J. P. “Harry Grundfest—January 10, 1904–October 10, 1983.”
Biog. Mem. Natl. Acad. Sci.
66 (1995): 151–66.

5: The Nerve Cell Speaks

Adrian wrote elegantly about impulses in his
The Basis of Sensation: The Action of the Sense Organs
(London: Christopher, 1928). Motor discharges are discussed in E. D. Adrian and D. W. Bronk, “The discharge of impulses in motor nerve fibers. Part I: Impulses in single fibers of the phrenic nerve,”
J. Physiol.
66 (1928): 81–101; “the motor fibers…” is from p. 98. Adrian’s praise of Sherrington appears in J. C. Eccles and W. C. Gibson,
Sherrington: His Life and Thought
(Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1979), p. 84.

For a discussion of Hermann Helmholtz’s remarkable set of contributions to conduction of the nervous impulse, to perception, and to unconscious inference, see E. G. Boring,
A History of Experimental Psychology
, 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1950).

For a discussion of Julius Bernstein’s contribution, see A. L. Hodgkin,
The Conduction of the Nervous Impulse
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1967); A. Huxley, “Electrical activity in nerve: The background up to 1952,” in
The Axon: Structure, Function and Pathophysiology
, ed. S. G. Waxman, J. D. Kocsis, and P. K. Stys, 3–10 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); B. Katz,
Nerve, Muscle, Synapse
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966); and S. M. Schuetze, “The discovery of the action potential,”
Trends in Neuroscience
6 (1983): 164–68.

Other information for this chapter was drawn from the following:

Adrian, E. D.
The Mechanism of Nervous Action: Electrical Studies of the Neuron
. (London: Oxford University Press, 1932).

Bernstein, J. “Investigations on the thermodynamics of bioelectric currents.”
Pflügers Arch
92 (1902): 521–62. (English translation in
Cell Membrane Permeability and Transport
, edited by G. R. Kepner, 184–210. Stroudsburg, Pa.: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, 1979.)

Doyle, D. A., J. M. Cabral, R. A. Pfuetzner, A. Kuo, J. M. Gulbis, S. L. Cohen, B. T. Chait, and R. MacKinnon. “The structure of the potassium channel: Molecular basis of K+ conduction and selectivity.”
Science
280 (1998): 69–77.

Galvani, L.
Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion
. Translated by Robert Montraville Green. Cambridge, Mass.: E. Licht, 1953. (A translation of Luigi Galvani’s 1933
De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu Musculari Commentarius.
)

Hodgkin, A. L.
Chance and Design
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

———. “Autobiographical essay.” In
The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography
, edited by L. R. Squire. Vol. 1., 253–92. Washington, D.C.: Society for Neuroscience, 1996.

Hodgkin, A. L., and A. F. Huxley. “Action potentials recorded from inside a nerve fibre.”
Nature
144 (1939): 710–11.

Young, J. Z. “The functioning of the giant nerve fibers of the squid.”
J. Exp. Biol.
15 (1938): 170–85.

6: Conversation Between Nerve Cells

Grundfest remained a sparker for a very long time, even after Eccles and most other neurophysiologists had become convinced about the chemical nature of synaptic transmission. It was only in September 1954, a year before I arrived in his laboratory, that Grundfest, in an important symposium on nerve impulses, shifted his view. He wrote, “Eccles has recently adopted the position that this [nerve cell to nerve cell] transmission is chemically mediated. Some of us opposed the view…. We may have been in error.” (D. Nachmansohn and H. H. Merrit, eds.,
Nerve Impulses; Transactions
[New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, 1956], p.184).

For a history of synaptic transmission, see W. M. Cowan and E. R. Kandel, “A brief history of synapses and synaptic transmission,” in
Synapses,
ed. W. M. Cowan, T. C. Südhof, and C. F. Stevens (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 1–87.

Bernard Katz recounts his arrival in Britain in “To tell you the truth, sir, we do it because it’s amusing!” in
The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography,
ed. L. R. Squire, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Society for Neuroscience, 1996): 348–81; quotation from p. 373.

For Eccles on Popper, see his “Under the spell of the synapse,” in
The Neurosciences: Paths of Discovery
, ed. F. G. Worden, J. P. Swazey, and G. Adelman (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976), 159–80; quotations from pp. 162 and 163. For other reminiscences on the history of the synapse and on the soup and spark controversy, see S. R. Cajal,
Recollections of My Life
, translated by E. H. Craigie and J. Cano,
Am. Philos. Soc. Mem.
8 (1937); H. H. Dale, “The beginnings and the prospects of neurohumoral transmission,”
Pharmacol. Rev. 6
(1954): 7–13; O. Loewi,
From the Workshop of Discoveries
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1953). Paul Fatt reviewed synaptic transmission in “Biophysics of junctional transmission,”
Physiol. Rev.
34 (1954): 674–710; quotation from p. 704.

Other information for this chapter was drawn from the following:

Brown, G. L., H. H. Dale, and W. Feldberg. “Reactions of the normal mammalian muscle to acetylcholine and eserine.”
J. Physiol.
87 (1936): 394–424.

Eccles, J. C.
Physiology of the Synapses
. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1964.

Furshpan, E. J., and D. D. Potter. “Transmission at the giant motor synapses of the crayfish.”
J. Physiol
. 145 (1959): 289–325.

Grundfest, H. “Synaptic and ephaptic transmission.” In
Handbook of Physiology
. Section I:
Neurophysiology
, 147–97. Washington, D.C.: American Physiological Society, 1959.

Kandel, E. R., J. H. Schwartz, and T. M. Jessell.
Principles of Neural Science
. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Katz, B.
Electric Excitation of Nerve
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939.

———.
The Release of Neural Transmitter Substances
. Liverpool: University Press, 1969.

———. “Stephen W. Kuffler.” In
Steve: Remembrances of Stephen W. Kuffler
, edited by O. J. McMahan. Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Associates, 1990.

Loewi, O., and E. Navratil. “On the humoral propagation of cardiac nerve action. Communication X: The fate of the vagus substance.” In
Cellular Neurophysiology: A Source Book,
edited by I. Cooke and M. Lipkin Jr., 478–85. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1972. (Original German-language publication 1926.)

Palay, S. L. “Synapses in the central nervous system.”
J. Biophys. Biochem. Cytol.
2 (Suppl.) (1956): 193–202.

Popper, K. R., and J. C. Eccles.
The Self and Its Brain.
Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1977.

7: Simple and Complex Neuronal Systems

Visual experiences in response to LSD are described in A. L. Huxley,
The Doors of Perception
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954); J. H. Jaffe, “Drugs of addiction and drug abuse,” in
The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics,
7th ed., ed. L. S. Goodman and A. Gilman (New York: Macmillan, 1985); and D. W. Woolley and E. N. Shaw, “Evidence for the participation of serotonin in mental processes.”
Annals N. Y. Acad. of Sci.
66 (1957): 649–65; discussion, 665–67.

In reconstructing my recollections of Wade Marshall for this chapter, I benefited from discussions with William Landau, Stanley Rappaport, and Tom Marshall, Wade Marshall’s son.

Marshall’s first seminal papers were: R. W. Gerard, W. H. Marshall, and L. J. Saul, “Cerebral action potentials,”
Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. and Med.
30 (1933): 1123–25; and R. W. Gerard, W. H. Marshall, and L. J. Saul, “Electrical activity of the cat’s brain,”
Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat.
36 (1936): 675–735. His later classic papers include: W. H. Marshall, C. N. Woolsey, and P. Bard, “Observations on cortical somatic sensory mechanisms of cat and monkey,”
J. Neurophysiol.
4 (1941): 1–24; and W. H. Marshall and S. A. Talbot, “Recent evidence for neural mechanisms in vision leading to a general theory of sensory acuity,” in
Visual Mechanisms
, ed. H. Kluver, 117–64
(
Lancaster, Pa.: Cattell, 1942).