A hole in the head : more tales in the history of neuroscience / Charles G. Gross.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Neuroscientist Charles Gross has been interested in the history of his field since his days as an undergraduate. A Hole in the Head is the second collection of essays in which he illuminates the study of the brain with fascinating episodes from the past. This volume's tales range fromn the history of trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull) to neurosurgery as painted by Hieronymus Bosch to the discovery that bats navigate using echolocation. The emphasis is on blind alleys and errors as well as triumphs and discoveries, with ancient practices connected to recent developments and controversies. Gross first reaches back into the beginnings of neuroscience, discussing such topics as debates over the role of the brain (as opposed to the heart) in cognition and the relationship of vision to ideas about the "evil eye." He then takes up the interaction of art and neuroscience, exploring, among other things, Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson" paintings--one of which prefigured the poses in a famous photograph of the dead Che Guevara. Finally, Gross examines discoveries by scientists whose work was scorned in their own time but proven correct in later eras, including Claude Bernard's argument for the importance of the constancy of the internal environment and Joseph Altman's pioneering (and ignored) discovery of adult neurogenesis. -- Back cover.

Early neuroscience and its reverberations today -- A hole in the head : a history of trepanation -- Heart versus brain : Galen and the squealing pig -- The fire that comes from the eye -- The discovery of motor cortex -- Neuroscience and art -- "Psychosurgery" in Renaissance art -- Left and right in science and art / with Marc H. Bornstein -- Rembrandt's The anatomy lesson of Dr. Joan Deijman -- Scientists who were "before their time" -- Claude Bernard and the constancy of the internal environment -- Bartolomeo Panizza and the visual brain / with Michael Colombo and Arnaldo Colombo -- Joseph Altman and adult neurogenesis : the dogma of "no new neurons" in the adult mammalian brain -- Donald R. Griffin : echolocation and animal consciousness -- The genealogy of the "grandmother cell."