Mind–Body Issue

Abstract

Neuropsychology and neuroscience, more broadly, is a relatively new area of study with no clinical neuropsychology textbooks available until the 1970s, with the notable exception of Alexander Romanovich Luria’s initial publication of his text in 1966. However, there were many relevant resources even within the earliest writings in science. Indeed, the Egyptians described brain lesions some 5000 years ago and even provided insight into head injuries with a case study of “contra coup” damage to the brain. The early Greeks, including Hippocrates (460–379 BC), Aristotle (384–322 BC), and Galen (130–200 AD) each contributed their own accounting of the functions of the brain, which allow for some insights into their philosophical views on the mind–body issue. Hippocrates was clearly ahead of his time when he localized movement to the contralateral brain in his study of “the sacred disease” we know as epilepsy. Aristotle, having touched a brain without producing “feelings,” related these functions to the heart. But Hippocrates stated that “from the brain and the brain alone arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains and grief.” In this prescient publication, he established a basis for scientific inquiry that continues with the strongest vigor through the present day, locating the vast territory for scientific exploration squarely inside of the skull.