History of Neuroscience   Milestones in NeuroscienceResearch0 to 1500 AD |1500 to 1600 AD |1600 to 1700 AD |1700 to 1800 AD 1800 to 1850 AD |1850 to 1900 AD |1900 to 1950 AD |1950 to present The following dates andevents were gathered from several sources. Theseevents are certainly not all of the important events to take place inneuroscience...just some of the ones that I have selected.4000 B.C. to 0 A.Dca. 4000 B.C. - Euphoriant effect of poppy plant reported in Sumerian records ca. 4000 B.C. - Clay tablets from Mesopotamia discuss how to use alcohol to dilute medicineca. 2700 B.C. - Shen Nung originates acupunctureca. 1700 B.C. - Edwin Smith surgical papyrus written. First writtenrecord about the nervous systemca. 1400-1200 B.C. - Ayuvedic system of Hindu medicine develops ca. 500 B.C. - Alcmaion of Crotona dissects sensory nervesca. 500 B.C. - Alcmaion of Crotona describes the optic nerveca. 500 B.C. - Empedocles suggests that "visual rays" cause sight460-379 B.C. - Hippocrates discusses epilepsy as a disturbance of thebrain460-379 B.C. - Hippocrates states that the brain is involved with sensation and is the seat of intelligence387 B.C. - Plato teaches at Athens. Believes brain is seat of mentalprocess335 B.C. - Aristotle writes about sleep; believes heart is seat of mental process 335-280 B.C. - Herophilus (the "Father of Anatomy"); believes ventricles are seat of human intelligence280 B.C. - Erasistratus of Chios notes divisions of the brain HippocratesImage courtesy of the Blocker History of MedicineCollections, Moody Medical Library, Univ. Texas Med. Branch, Galveston0 A.D. to 1500177 - Galen lecture On the Brainca. 100 - Marinus describes the tenth cranial nerveca. 100 - Rufus of Ephesus describes and names the optic chiasmca. 900 - Rhazes describes seven cranial nerves and 31 spinal nerves in Kitab al-Hawi Fi Al Tibbca. 1000 - Alhazen compares the eye to a camera-like deviceca. 1000 - Al-Zahrawi (also known as Abulcasis or Albucasis) describes several surgical treatments for neurological disorders1025 - Avicenna writes about vision and the eye in The Canon of Medicine 1088 - Abu Ruh writes The Light of the Eyes describing several eye operations1260 - Louis IX founds the Hopital des Quinze-Vingts, the first institution for the blind1316 - Mondino de'Luzzi writes the first European anatomy textbook(Anothomia)1402 - St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital is used exclusively for the mentally ill1410 - Institution for the mentally ill established in Valencia, Spain Imagecourtesy of the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Collection1500 - 16001504 - Leonardo da Vinci produces wax cast of human ventricles1536 - Nicolo Massa describes the cerebrospinal fluid1538 - Andreas Vesalius publishes Tabulae Anatomicae1543 - Andreas Vesalius publishes On the Workings of the Human Body1543 - Andreas Vesalius discusses the pineal gland and draws the corpus striatum1549 - Jason Pratensis publishes De Cerebri Morbis, an early book devoted to neurological disease1550 - Vesalius describes hydrocephalus1550 - Bartolomeo Eustachio describes the brain origin of the optic nerves1561 - Gabriele Falloppio publishes Observationes Anatomicaeand describes some of the cranial nerves. Separate trochlear and abducens nerves identified1562 - Bartolomeo Eustachio publishes The Examination of the Organ ofHearing1564 - Giulio Cesare Aranzi coins the term hippocampus1573 - Constanzo Varolio names the pons 1573 - Constanzo Varolio is first to cut brain starting at its base1573 - Girolamo Mercuriali writes De nervis opticis to describe optic nerve anatomy1583 - Felix Platter states that the lens only focuses light and that the retina is where images are formed1583 - Georg Bartisch publishes Ophthalmodouleia: das ist Augendienst with drawings of the eye.1586 - A. Piccolomini distinguishes between cortex and white matter 1587 - Guilio Cesare Aranzi describes ventricles and hippocampus. He also demonstrates that the retina has a reversed image1590 - Zacharias Janssen invents the compound microscope1596 - Sir Walter Raleigh mentions arrow poison in his book Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana Leonardo Da Vinci Andreas VesaliusImage courtesy of the Blocker History of MedicineCollections, Moody Medical Library, Univ. Texas Med. Branch,Galveston1600 - 17001601 - Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente publishes Tractatus de Oculo Visusque Organo describing the correct location of the lens relative to the iris1604 - Johannes Kepler describes inverted retinal image 1609 - J. Casserio publishes first description of mammillary bodies 1611 - Lazarus Riverius textbook describing impairments on consciousnesspublished1621 - Robert Burton publishes The Anatomy of Melancholy about depression1623 - Benito Daca de Valdes publishes the first book on vision testing and eyeglass-fitting1641 - Franciscus de la Boe Sylvius describes fissure on the lateral surface of the brain (Sylvian fissure)1644 - Giovanni Battista Odierna describes the microscopic appearance of the fly eye in L'Occhio della Mosca1649 - Rene Descartes describes pineal as control center of body and mind1650 - Franciscus de la Boe Sylvius describes a narrow passage between the third and fourth ventricles (the aqueduct of Sylvius)1658 - Johann Jakof Wepfer theorizes that a broken brain blood vessel maycause apoplexy (stroke)1661 - Thomas Willis describes a case of meningitis1662 - Rene Descartes De homine is published (He died in1650) 1664 - Thomas Willis publishes Cerebri anatome (in Latin) 1664 - Thomas Willis describes the eleventh cranial nerve (accessory nerve)1664 - Gerardus Blasius discovers and names the "arachnoid"1665 - RobertHooke details his first microscope 1667 - Robert Hooke publishes Micrographia1668 - l'Abbe Edme Mariotte discovers the blind spot1670 - William Molins names the trochlear nerve1673 - Joseph DuVerney uses experimental ablation technique in pigeons 1681 - English edition of Thomas Willis' Cerebri anatome ispublished1681 - Thomas Willis coins the term Neurology1684 - Raymond Vieussens publishes Neurographia Universalis1684 - Raymond Vieussens uses boiling oil to harden the brain 1686 - Thomas Sydenham describes a form of chorea in children and young adults1695 - Humphrey Ridley describes the restiform body1695 - Humphrey Ridley publishes The Anatomy of the Brain1696 - John Locke writes Essay Concerning Human Understanding1697 - Joseph G. Duverney introduces the term "brachial plexus" Thomas WillisImage courtesy of the Blocker History of MedicineCollections, Moody Medical Library, Univ. Texas Med. Branch,Galveston1700 - 18001704 - Antonio Valsalva publishes On the Human Ear1705 - AntonioPacchioni describes arachnoid granulations1709 - Domenico Mistichelli describes pyramidal decussation1709 - George Berkeley publishes New Theory of Vision1717 - Antonyvan Leeuwenhoek describes nerve fiber in cross section1721 - The word "anesthesia" first appears in English (in DictionaryBritannicum)1736 - Jean Astruc coins the term reflex1740 - Emanuel Swedenborg publishes Oeconomia regni animalis1749 - David Hartley publishes Observations of Man, the first English work using the word "psychology"1750 - Jacques Daviel performs the first cataract extraction on a living human eye1752 - The Society of Friends establishes a hospital-based environment for the mentally ill in Philadelphia1755 - J.B. Le Roy uses electroconvulsive therapy for mental illness1760 - Arne-Charles Lorry demonstrates that damage to the cerebellum affects motor coordination1764 - Domenico F.A. Cotugno describes spinal subarachnoid cerebrospinal fluid; shows that ventricular and spinal fluids are connected1764 - The interventricular foramen (Foramen of Monroe) is named after Alexander Monroe; it was described earlier by Vieussens1766 - Albrecht von Haller provides scientific description of the cerebrospinal fluid1772 - John Walsh conducts experiments on torpedo (electric) fish1773 - John Fothergill describes trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureux,Fothergill's syndrome)1773 - Sir Joseph Priestley discovers nitrous oxide1774 - Franz Anton Mesmer introduces "animal magnetism" (later called hypnosis)1776 - M.V.G. Malacarne publishes first book solely devoted to thecerebellum1777 - Philip Meckel proposes that the inner ear is filled with fluid, notair1778 - Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring presents the modern classification of the twelve cranial nerves1779 - Antonius Scarpa describes Scarpa's ganglion of the vestibularsystem1781 - Felice Fontana describes the microscopic features of axoplasm froman axon1782 - Francesco Gennari publishes work on "lineola albidior" (later known as the stripe of Gennari)1782 - Francesco Buzzi identifies the fovea1783 - Alexander Monro describes the foramen of Monro1784 - Benjamin Rush writes that alcohol can be an addictive drug1784 - Benjamin Franklin mentions bifocal eyeglasses in a letter to George Whatley1786 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the locus coeruleus1786 - Samuel Thomas Sommering describes the optic chiasm1786 - Georg Joseph Beer founds the first eye hospital in Vienna1790 - Johannes Ehrenritter describes the glossopharygeal nerve ganglion 1791 - Luigi Galvani publishes work on electrical stimulation of frog nerves 1791 - Samuel Thomas von Soemmering names the macula lutea of the retina1796 - Johann Christian Reil describes the insula (island of Reil)1798 - John Dalton, who was red-green colorblind, provides a scientific description of color blindness Antony van Leeuwenhoek Franz Anton MesmerImages courtesy of the Blocker History of MedicineCollections, Moody Medical Library, Univ. Texas Med. Branch,Galveston1800 - 1850 1800 - Alessandro Volta invents the wet cell battery1800 - Humphrey Davy synthesizes nitrous oxide1800 - Samuel von Sommering identifies black material in the midbrain and calls it the "substantia nigra"1801 - Thomas Young describes astigmatism1801 - Adam Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner crystalizes opium and obtains morphine1805 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the red nucleus1808 - Franz JosephGall publishes work on phrenology1809 - Johann Christian Reil uses alcohol to harden the brain1809 - Luigi Rolando uses galvanic current to stimulate cortex1811 - Julien Jean Legallois discovers respiratory center in medulla1811 - CharlesBell discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord1812 - Benjamin Rush publishes Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind1813 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the claustrum1817 - JamesParkinson publishes An Essay on the Shaking Palsy 1818 - Library of the Surgeon General's Office established (later tobecome the Army Medical Library and then the National Library ofMedicine)1820 - Galvanometer invented1821 - Charles Bell describes facial paralysis ipsilateral to facial nervelesion (Bell's palsy)1821 - Francois Magendie discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord1822 - Friedrich Burdach names the cingular gyrus1822 - Friedrich Burdach distinguishes lateral and medial geniculate1823 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens states that cerebellum regulates motor activity 1824 - John C. Caldwell publishes Elements of Phrenology1824 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens details ablation to study behavior 1824 - F. Magendie provides first evidence of cerebellum role in equilibration 1825 - John P. Harrison first argues against phrenology1825 - Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud presents cases of loss of speech afterfrontal lesions1825 - Robert B. Todd discusses the role of the cerebral cortex inmentation, corpus striatum in movement and midbrain in emotion1825 - Luigi Rolando describes the sulcus that separates the precentraland postcentral gyri 1826 - Johannes Muller publishes theory of "specific nerve energies" 1827 - Francois Magendie discovers foramen of Magendie1827 - E. Merck & Company market morphine1832 - Justus von Liebig discovers chloral hydrate1832 - Jean-Pierre Robiquet isolates codeine1832 - Massachusetts establishes a "State Lunatic Hospital" for the mentally ill1832 - Sir Charles Wheatstone invents the stereoscope1833 - Philipp L. Geiger isolates atropine1834 - Ernst Heinrich Weber publishes theory of "Just Noticeable Difference" or "Weber's Law"1836 - Marc Dax reads paper on left hemisphere damage effects onspeech1836 - Gabriel Gustav Valentin identifies neuron nucleus and nucleolus1836 - Robert Remak describes myelinated and unmyelinated axons1836 - Charles Dickens (the novelist) describes obstructive sleepapnea1837 - Jan Purkyne (Purkinje) describes cerebellar cells; identifiesneuron nucleus and processes1837 - The American Physiological Society is founded1838 - Robert Remak suggests that nerve fiber and nerve cell are joined1838 - Theordor Schwann describes the myelin-forming cell in theperipheral nervous system ("Schwann cell")1838 - Jean-Etienne-Dominique Esquirol publishes Des Maladies Mentales, possibly the first modern work about mental disorders1838 - Napoleonic Code leads to the requirement of facilities for the mentally ill1838 - Eduard Zeis publishes study about dreams in people who are blind1839 - Theordor Schwann proposes the cell theory1839 - C. Chevalier coins the term microtome1839 - Francois Leuret names the Rolandic sulcus for LuigiRolando1840 - Adolph Hannover uses chromic acid to harden nervous tissue 1840 - Jules Gabriel Francois Baillarger discusses the connections between white and gray matter of cerebral cortex1840 - Adolphe Hannover discovers the ganglion cells of the retina1841 - Dorothea Lynde Dix investigates brutality within mental hospitals in the United States1842 - Benedikt Stilling is first to study spinal cord in serial sections1842 - Crawford W. Long uses ether on man1842 - Francois Magendie describes the median opening in the roof of the fourth ventricle (foramen of Magendie)1843 - James Braid coins the term "hypnosis"1844 - Robert Remak provides first illustration of 6-layered cortex1844 - Horace Wells uses nitrous oxide during a tooth extraction1846 - William Morton demonstrates ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital 1847 - Chloroform anesthesia used by James Young Simpson1847 - American Medical Association is founded1847 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science is founded1848 - Phineas Gage has his brain pierced by an iron rod1848 - Richard Owen coins the word "notochord"1849 - Hermann von Helmholtz measures the speed of frog nerve impulses1850 - 19001850 - Augustus Waller describes appearance of degenerating nerve fibers1850 - Marshall Hall coins the term spinal shock1850 - EmilDu Bois-Reymond invents nerve galvanometer1851 - Heinrich Muller is first to describe the colored pigments in theretina1851 - Marchese Alfonso Corti describes the cochlear receptor organ in theinner ear (organ of Corti)1851 - Hermann von Helmholtz invents ophthalmoscope1852 - A. Kolliker describes how motor nerves originate from theneurons in the anterior horn of the spinal cord1852 - George Meissner and Rudolf Wagner describe encapsulated nerve endings later known as "Meissner's corpuscles"1853 - William Benjamin Carpenter proposes "sensory ganglion" (thalamus) as seat of consciousness1854 - Louis P. Gratiolet describes convolutions of the cerebralcortex1855 - Bartolomeo Panizza shows the occipital lobe is essential for vision1855 - Richard Heschl describes the transverse gyri in the temporal lobe(Heschl's gyri)1856 - Albrecht von Graefe describes homonymous hemianopia1859 - CharlesDarwin publishes The Origin of Species 1859 - Rudolph Virchow coins the term neuroglia1860 - Albert Niemann purifies cocaine1860 - Gustav Theodor Fechner develops "Fechner's law"1860 - Karl L. Kahlbaum describes and names "catatonia"1861 - PaulBroca discusses cortical localization1861 - T.H. Huxley coins the term calcarine sulcus 1862 - William Withey Gull describes clinical signs of syringomyelia1862 - Hermann Snellen invents the eyechart with letters to test vision1863 - Ivan Mikhalovich Sechenov publishes Reflexes of the Brain1863 - Nikolaus Friedreich describes a progressive hereditary degenerativeCNS disorder (Friedreich's ataxia)1864 - JohnHughlings Jackson writes on loss of speech after brain injury1865 - Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters differentiates dendrites and axons1865 - Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters describes the lateral vestibularnucleus(Deiter's nucleus)1866 - John Langdon Haydon Down publishes work on congenital "idiots"1866 - Julius Bernstein hypothesized that a nerve impulse is a "wave ofnegativity"1867 - TheodoreMeynert performs histologic analysis of cerebral cortex1868 - Julius Bernstein measures the time course of the action potential1868 - Friedrich Goll describes the fasciculus gracilis1869 - Francis Galton claims that intelligence is inherited (publication of Hereditary Genius)1869 - Johann Friedrich Horner describes eye disorder (small pupil, droopy eyelid) later to be called "Horner's syndrome"1870 - EduardHitzig and GustavFritsch discover cortical motor area of dog using electrical stimulation1870 - Ernst von Bergmann writes first textbook on nervous systemsurgery1871 - Weir Mitchell provides detailed account of phantom limbsyndrome1872 - GeorgeHuntington describes symptoms of a hereditary chorea1872 - Sir William Turner describes the interparietal sulcus1873 - CamilloGolgi publishes first work on the silver nitrate method1874 - Jean Martin Charcot describes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis1874 - Vladimir Alekseyevich Betz publishes work on giant pyramidal cells1874 - Roberts Bartholow electrically stimulates human cortical tissue1874 - CarlWernicke publishes Der Aphasische Symptomencomplex on aphasias1875 - Sir David Ferrier describes different parts of monkey motor cortex1875 - Richard Caton is first to record electrical activity from the brain 1875 - Wilhelm Heinrich Erb and Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal describe theknee jerk reflex1876 - David Ferrier publishes The Functions of the Brain1876 - Franz Christian Boll discovers rhodopsin1876 - Francis Galton uses the term "nature and nurture" to explain"heredity and environment"1877 - Jean-MartinCharcot publishes Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System1878 - W. Bevan Lewis publishes work on giant pyramidal cells of human precentral gyrus1878 - ClaudeBernard describes nerve/muscle blocking action of curare1878 - The first Ph.D. with "psychology" in its title is given to Granville Stanley Hall at Harvard University1878 - PaulBroca publishes work on the "great limbic lobe" 1878 - W.R. Gowers publishes Unilateral Gunshot Injury to the SpinalCord 1878 - Harmon Northrop Morse synthesized acetaminophen (paracetamol)1878 - Louis-Antoine Ranvier describes regular interruptions in the myelin sheath (nodes of Ranvier)1879 - Camillo Golgi describes the "musculo-tendineous organs" (later tobe know as the "Golgi tendon organs")1879 - Mathias Duval introduces an improved method of embedding tissue using collodion1879 - Hermann Munk presents detailed anatomy of the optic chiasm1879 - William Crookes invents the cathode ray tube1879 - WilhelmWundt sets up lab devoted to study human behavior1880 - Jean Baptiste Edouard Gelineau introduces the word "narcolepsy"1880 - Friedrich Sigmund Merkel describes free nerve endings later knownas "Merkel's corpuscles"1881 - Hermann Munk reports on visual abnormalities after occipital lobeablation in dogs1883 - Sir Victor Horsley describes effects of nitrous oxide anesthesia1883 - Emil Kraepelin coins the terms neuroses and psychoses1884 - Franz Nissl describes the granular endoplasmic reticulum ("NisslSubstance")1884 - Karl Koller discovers anesthetic properties of cocaine1884 - Georges Gilles de la Tourette describes several movement disorders1884 - Theodor Meynert publishes A Clinical Treatise on the Diseases of the Forebrain1885 - Paul Ehrlich notes that intravenous dye does not stain brain tissue1885 - CarlWeigert introduces hematoxylin to stain myelin1885 - LudwigEdinger describes nucleus that will be known as the Edinger-Westphal nucleus1885 - Hermann Ebbinghaus publishes On Memory1886 - Joseph Jastrow earns the first Ph.D. from the first formalPhD program in psychology at Johns Hopkins University1886 - V. Marchi publishes procedure to stain degenerating myelin1887 - SergeiKorsakoff describes symptoms characteristic in alcoholics1887 - The National Institutes of Health established1887 - Alfred Binet and C. Fere publish Animal Magnetism, a studyon hypnosis1887 - Adolf Eugen Fick makes the first contact lens out of glass for vision correction1888 - William Gill describes anorexia nervosa1888 - William W. Keen, Jr. is first American to remove intracranialmeningioma1888 - Hans Chiari introduces the term "syringomyelia"1888 - Giovanni Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as "Martinotti cells"1889 - SantiagoRamon y Cajal argues that nerve cells are independent elements1889 - William His coins the term dendrite1889 - Sir Victor Horsley publishes somatotopic map of monkey motorcortex1889 - Carlo Martinotti describes cortical neuron with ascending axon(this neuron now bears his name, Martinotti cell)1889 - F.C. Muller-Lyer discovers the Muller-Lyer illusion1890 - Wilhelm Ostwald discovers the membrane theory of nerveconduction 1890 - William James publishes Principles of Psychology1890 - The term "mental tests" was coined by James Cattell1891 - H. Quincke introduces the lumbar puncture1891 - Wilhelm von Waldeyer coins the term neuron1891 - Luigi Luciani publishes manuscript on the cerebellum1891 - Heinrich Quinke develops the lumbar puncture (spinal tap)1892 - Salomen Eberhard Henschen localizes vision to calcarine fissure1892 - American Psychological Association formed1892 - Arnold Pick first describes "Pick's disease"1893 - PaulEmil Flechsig describes myelinization of the brain1893 - Charles Scott Sherrington coins the term proprioceptive1894 - FranzNissl stains neurons with dahlia violet1894 - Margaret Floy Washburn is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. (Cornell University) in psychology1895 - William His first uses the term hypothalamus1895 - WilhelmKonrad Roentgen invents the X-ray1895 - Heinrick Quincke performs lumbar puncture to study cerebrospinalfluid1895 - Formalization of the cranial nerve number system published in Basle Nomina Anatomica 1896 - Max von Frey details "stimulus hairs" to test the somatosensory system 1896 - Rudolph Albert von Kolliker coins the term axon1896 - Camillo Golgi discovers the Golgi apparatus1896 - Joseph Babinski describes the Babinski Sign1896 - Emil Kraeplein describes dementia praecox1897 - IvanPetrovich Pavlov publishes work on physiology of digestion1897 - Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the oscilloscope1897 - John Jacob Abel isolates adrenalin1897 - CharlesScott Sherrington coins the term synapse1897 - Ferdinand Blum uses formaldehyde as brain fixative1897 - Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) is synthesized by Felix Hoffmann1898 - Charles Scott Sherrington describes decerebrate rigidity in cat1898 - Edward Lee Thorndike describes the puzzle box1898 - Bayer Drug Company markets heroin as nonaddicting cough medicine1898 - John Newport Langley coins the term autonomic nervous system1898 - Angelo Ruffini describes encapsulated nerve endings later known asRuffini corpuscles1899 - Francis Gotch describes a "refractory phase" between nerveimpulses1899 - Bayer AG markets aspirin1899 - Karl Gustav August Bier uses cocaine for intraspinal anesthesia John HughlingsJacksonImage courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, History of MedicineCollection Charles Darwin Hermann von Helmholtz Jean-Martin Charcot  ClaudeBernardImages courtesy of the Blocker History of MedicineCollections, Moody Medical Library, Univ. Texas Med. Branch, Galveston CamilloGolgiCourtesy of the National Library of Medicine.1900 - 19501900 - SigmundFreud publishes TheInterpretation of Dreams1900 - Charles Scott Sherrington states that cerebellum is head ganglion of the proprioceptive system1900 - M. Lewandowsky coins the term "blood-brain barrier"(Bluthirnschranke) [ref: Aschner and Kerper, Mol. Biol. and Tox. ofMetals, 2000]1902 - Julius Bernstein proposes membrane theory for cells1902 - Physiologist Ida Hyde is the first woman elected to the American Physiological Society 1903 - Ivan Pavlov coins the term conditioned reflex1903 - Alfred Walter Campbell studies cytoarchitecture of anthropoid cerebral cortex1904 - Procaine is synthesized1905 - Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon have their first intelligence test1905 - John Newport Langley coins the phrase "parasympathetic nervous system"1906 - AloisAlzheimer describes presenile degeneration1906 - Golgi and Cajal-Nobel Prize-Structure of the Nervous System1906 - Sir Charles Scott Sherrington publishes The Integrative Action of the Nervous system that describes the synapse and motor cortex1907 - Ross Granville Harrison describes tissue culture methods1907 - John Newport Langley introduces the concept of receptor molecules1908 - Vladimir Bekhterew describes the superior nucleus of the vestibularnerve (Bekhterew's nucleus)1908 - Victor Alexander Haden Horsley and Robert Henry Clarke design stereotaxic instrument1908 - Willem Einthoven makes string galvanometer recordings from the vagus nerve1909 - HarveyCushing is first to electrically stimulate human sensory cortex1909 - KorbinianBrodmann describes 52 discrete cortical areas1909 - Karl Jaspers publishes General Mental Illness1910 - Emil Kraepelin namesAlzheimer's disease1911 - Allvar Gullstrand-Nobel Prize-Optics of the eye 1911 - Eugen Bleuler coins the term schizophrenia1911 - George Barger and Henry Dale discover norepinephrine (noradrenaline)1912 - Original formula for the intelligence quotient (IQ) developed by William Stern1913 - Santiago Ramon y Cajal develops gold chloride-mercury stain to showastrocytes1913 - Edwin Ellen Goldmann finds blood brain barrier impermeable to large molecules1913 - Edgar Douglas Adrian publishes work on all-or-none principle in nerve 1913 - Walter Samuel Hunter devises delayed-response test1914 - Robert Barany-Nobel Prize-Vestibular apparatus 1914 - Henry H. Dale isolates acetylcholine1915 - J.G. Dusser De Barenne describes activity of brain after strychnine application1915 - Aspirin becomes available without a prescription1916 - Richard Henneberg coins the term cataplexy1916 - George Guillain, Jean Alexander Barre and Andre Strohl describe an acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (Guillain-Barre Syndrome)1916 - Shinobu Ishihara publishes a set of plates to test color vision1918 - Walter E. Dandy introduces the ventriculography1919 - CecileVogt describes over 200 cortical areas 1919 - Walter E. Dandy introduces the air encephalography1919 - GordonMorgan Holmes localizes vision to striate area1919 - Pio del Rio Hortega divides neuroglia into microglia and oligodendroglia1920 - Society of Neurological Surgeons is founded1920 - HenryHead publishes Studies in Neurology1920 - Stephen Walter Ranson demonstrates connections between the hypothalamus and pituitary1920 - John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner publish experiments about classical conditioning of fear (Little Albert experiments)1921 - Otto Loewi publishes work on Vagusstoff1921 - Hermann Rorschach develops the inkblot test1921 - John Augustus Larsen and Leonard Keeler develop the polygraph1921 - del Rio Hortega describes microglia1922 - Army Medical Library established (was the Library of the SurgeonGeneral's Office)1924 - Charles Scott Sherrington discovers the stretch reflex1925 - C.von Economo and G.N. Koskinas revise Brodmann's corticalnomenclature of the cerebral cortex1926 - Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing publish paper describing morethe 2,000 neuroepithelial neoplasms 1927 - Chester William Darrow studies galvanic skin reflex in US1928 - Philip Bard suggests the neural mechanism of rage is in the diencephalon1928 - Walter Rudolph Hess reports "affective responses" to hypothalamic stimulation1928 - John Fulton publishes his observations (made in 1926 and 1928) ofthe sounds of blood flowing over the human visual cortex1929 - HansBerger publishes his findings about the first human electroencephalogram1929 - KarlLashley defines "equipotentiality" and "mass action"1927 - J.Wagner-Jauregg - Nobel Prize-Malaria to treat dementia paralyses1928 - Edgar Douglas Adrian publishes The Basis of Sensation1929 - Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser publish work on thecorrelation of nerve fiber size and function1929 - Walter B. Cannon coins the term homeostasis1930 - John Carew Eccles shows central inhibition of flexor reflexes1931 - Ulf Svante von Euler and J.H. Gaddum discover substance P1932 - Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska invent the electron microscope1932 - Jan Friedrich Tonnies develops multichannel ink-writing EEG machine1932 - Edgar Douglas Adrian and Charles S. Sherrington share Nobel Prize for work on the function of neurons1932 - Jan Friedrich Toennies and Brian Matthews design the differentialamplifier1932 - Smith, Kline and French introduce the first amphetamine, Benzedrine1933 - Ralph Waldo Gerard describes first experimental evoked potentials1934 - S. Howard Bartley performs studies on cortical visual evokedpotentials in rabbits1935 - Dexedrine (an amphetamine) introduced to treat narcolepsy1935 - Frederic Bremer uses cerveau isole preparation to study sleep1936 - EgasMoniz publishes work on the first human frontal lobotomy1936 - Henry Hallett Dale and Otto Loewi share Nobel Prize for work on the chemical transmission between nerves1936 - Walter Freeman performs first lobotomy in theUnited States 1937 - JamesPapez publishes work on limbic circuit1936 - Massachusetts General Hospital has first EEG laboratory1937 - Heinrich Kluver and Paul Bucy publish work on bilateral temporal lobectomies1937 - James W. Papez develops "visceral theory" of emotion1937 - John Zachary Young suggests that the squid giant axon can be used to understand nerve cells1938 - Isador Rabi coins term "magnetic resonance"1938 - B.F.Skinner publishes The Behavior of Organisms thatdescribes operant conditioning1938 - Albert Hofmann synthesizes LSD 1938 - UgoCerletti and Lucino Bini treat human patients withelectroshock1938 - Franz Kallmann publishes The Genetics of Schizophrenia1939 - Carl Pfaffman describes directionally sensitive cat mechanoreceptors1939 - Nathaniel Kleitman publishes Sleep and Wakefulness1942 - Stephen Kuffler develops the single nerve-muscle fiber preparation1943 - John Raymond Brobeck describes hypothalamic hyperphasia1944 - Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser share Nobel Prize for work on the functions of single nerve fiber1946 - Theodor Rasmussen describes the olivocochlear bundle (bundle ofRasmussen)1946 - President Truman signs the National Mental Health Act1947 - The American EEG Society is founded1948 - The World Health Organization is founded1949 - Kenneth Cole develops the voltage clamp1949 - A.C.A.F. Egas Moniz-Nobel Prize-Leucotomy to treat certain psychoses1949 - Walter Rudolph Hess receives Nobel Prize for work on the "Interbrain"1949 - Horace Winchell Magoun defines the reticular activating system1949 - John Cade discovers that lithium is an effective treatment for bipolar depression1949 - Giuseppi Moruzzi and Horace Winchell Magoun publish Brain Stem Reticular Formationand Activation of the EEG1949 - National Institute of Mental Health was formally established1949 - Donald Olding Hebb publishes The Organization of Behavior: ANeuropsychological Theory Charles Scott SherringtonCourtesy of the National Library of Medicine. HarveyCushingCourtesy of the National Library of Medicine EgasMonizCourtesy of the National Library of Medicine1950 - present1950 - Karl Lashley publishes In Search of the Engram1950 - Eugene Roberts and J. Awapara independently identify GABA in the brain1950 - The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokeestablished (it has gone through several name changes)1951 - MAO-inhibitors introduced to treat psychotics1951 - B.F. Skinner describes shaping in a paper titled How to Teach Animals1952 - Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley first describe the voltage clamp1952 - The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published by the American Psychiatric Association1953 - Brenda Milner discusses patient HM who suffers from memory loss of hippocampal surgery1953 - Eugene Aserinski and Nathaniel Kleitman describe rapid eye movements (REM) during sleep1953 - H. Kluver and E. Barrera introduce Luxol fast blue MBS stain1953 - Stephen Kuffler publishes work on center-surround, on-offorganization of retinal ganglion cell receptive fields1954 - James Olds describes rewarding effects of hypothalamic stimulation1954 - John Lilly invents the "isolation tank"1954 - Chlorpromazinewas approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration1956 - L. Leksell uses ultrasound to examine the brain1956 - National Library of Medicine named (was the Army MedicalLibrary)1956 - Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen isolate and purify nerve growth factor1957 - W.Penfield and T. Rasmussen devise motor and sensory homunculus1957 - The American Medical Association recognizes alcoholism as a disease1958 - Haloperidol introduced as a neuroleptic drug1959 - P. Karlson and M. Lusher coin the term "pheromone"1960 - Oleh Hornykiewicz shows that brain dopamine is lower than normal in Parkinson's disease patients 1961 - GeorgVon Bekesy awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the function of thecochlea1961 - Levadopa successfully treats parkinsonism1962 - Eldon Foltz performs the first cingulotomy to treat chronic pain1963 - John Carew Eccles, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley share Nobel Prize for work on the mechanisms of the neuron cell membrane1965 - Ronald Melzack and Patrick D. Wall publish gate control theory of pain1965 - Drug Abuse Control Act1967 - Ragnar Arthur Granit, Halden Keffer Hartline and George Wald share Nobel Prize for work on the mechanisms of vision1968 - Alexander Romanovich Luria publishes The Mind of a Mnemonist; A Little Book About a Vast Memory 1968 - National Eye Institute is established1969 - D.V. Reynolds describes the analgesic effect of electricalstimulation of the periaqueductal gray1970 - The Society for Neuroscience is formed1970 - Julius Axelrod, Bernard Katz and Ulf Svante von Euler share Nobel Prize for work on neurotransmitters1972 - Godfrey N. Hounsfield develops x-ray computed tomography1973 - Candace Pert and Solomon Snyder demonstrate opioid receptors in brain1973 - Sinemet is introduced as a treatment for Parkinson's disease1973 - Konrad Z. Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch share Nobel Prize for work on ethology1973 - Timothy Bliss and Terje Lomo describe long-term potentiation1974 - National Institute on Drug Abuse established1974 - International Association for the Study of Pain founded1974 - John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz discover enkephalin1974 - M.E.Phelps, E.J.Hoffman and M.M.Ter Pogossian develop first PET scanner1974 - First NMR image (a mouse) is taken1975 - John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz publish work on enkephalins1976 - Choh Hao Li and David Chung publish work on beta-endorphin1976 - Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann develop the patch-clamp technique1977 - Roger Guillemin and Andrew Victor Schally share Nobel Prize for work on peptides in the brain1981 - David Hunter Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel-Nobel Prize-visual system1981 - Roger Wolcott Sperry awarded Nobel Prize-functions brain hemispheres1982 - Bengt Ingemar Bergstrom, John Robert Vane and Sune K. Bergstromawarded Nobel Prize for the discovery of prostaglandins1986 - Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini awarded Nobel prize fortheir work on the control of nerve cell growth1987 - Fluoxetine(Prozac) introduced as treatment for depression1990 - U.S. President George Bush declares the decade starting in 1990 the"Decade of the Brain"1991 - Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann share the Nobel Prize for their workon the function of single ion channels1992 - National Institute on Drug Abuse becomes part of the NationalInstitutes of Health1993 - The gene responsible for Huntington's disease is identified1994 - Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell share the Nobel Prize for theirdiscovery of G-protein coupled receptors and their role in signaltransduction1997 - Stanley B. Prusiner awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery ofprions; a new biological principle of infection2000 - Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel share the NobelPrize for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervoussystem2004 - Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel share the Nobel Prize for their discoveries about odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system Wilder Penfield  RogerSperryCourtesy of the ArchivesCaliforniaInstitute of TechnologyTry it! Do you like interactive word search puzzles? Make sure yourbrowser is "java-enabled" and try these:Neuroscientists - pre 1800Neuroscientists - 1800-1899Neuroscientists - 1900-1950Neuroscientists - 1950-presentReferences:Afifi, A.K. and Bergman, R.A., Functional Neuroanatomy, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998. The margins of this text are filled with historical facts about the origins of neuroanatomical structures and discoveries.Albert, D.M., Dates in Ophthalmology. A Chronological Record of Progress in Ophthalmology Over the Last Millennium, New York: Parthenon Publishing Group, 2002.Bennett, M.R., The early history of the synapse: From Plato toSherrington, Brain Research Bulletin, 50:95-118, 1999.Brazier, M.A.B., A History of the Electrical Activity of the Brain, London: Pitman, 1961.Brazier, M.A.B., A History of Neurophysiology in the 19th Century, New York: Raven Press, 1988.Clarke, E. and Dewhurst, K., An Illustrated History of Brain Function, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.Clarke, E. and C.D. O'Malley, C.D., The Human Brain and Spinal Cord, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Finger, S., Origins of Neuroscience, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Finger, S. Minds Behind the Brain: A History of thePioneers and Their Discoveries, New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000.Francis, R.L., The Illustrated Almanac of Science Technology andInvention, New York: Plenum Press, 1997.Gross, C.G., Brain, Vision, Memory. Tales in the History ofNeuroscience, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998.Harding, A.S., Milestones in Health and Medicine, Phoenix (AZ) Oryx Press, 2000.Kandel, E.R. and Squire, L.R., Neuroscience: Breaking Down Scientific Barriers to the Study of Brain and Mind, in Science, 290:1113-1120, 2000.Marshall, L.H. and Magoun, H.W., Discoveries in the Human Brain, Totowa; Humana Press, 1998.Martensen, R.L., The Brain Takes Shape. An Early History, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004.Millon, T., Masters of the Mind. Exploring the Story of Mental Illness from Ancient Times to the New Millennium, Hoboken (NJ): John Wiley and Sons, 2004. Rose, F.C. and Bynum, W.F., Historical Aspects of the Neurosciences. A Festschrift for Macdonald Critchely, New York: Raven Press, 1982.Sebastian, A. Dates in Medicine. A Chronological Record of Medical Progress Over Three Millennia, New York: The Parthenon Publishing Group, 2000Shepherd, G.M., Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.Swartz, B.E. and Goldenshon, E.S., Timeline of the history of EEG andassociated fields, Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol., 106:173-176,1998.  Image courtesy of the National Library of MedicineFor more information, see:Chronology ofthe National Institutes of Health Edwin Smith Surgical PapyrusFounders of NeurologyHistory ofBiomedicineMapping theMotor Cortex - A History Mind and Body: Rene Descartes to William JamesNobel Prize Winners - NeurosciencePeople andDiscoveriesPre-20thCentury NeuroscienceToday in the Historyof PsychologyTHE JOHN C.Liebeskind History of Pain Collection![[^]](arrowsu.gif) [Back toTop][Go to Brain Facts][Return toE.H. Chudler's Home Page] | [Return toNeuroscience for Kids] |
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