History Of Neuropathology Research Articles

How and why I fell into neuropathology.

I'm going to explain how and why I fell into the Department of Neuropathology at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital of Paris. I'd also like to sketch the history of French neuropathology in the years 1960-2010, as seen by a naive young student, and then by a practicing neuropathologist (often still very naive). As a matter of fact, although the history of neurosciences [1-2] and the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris [3-4] have been the subject of numerous publications, the history of neuropathology in this hospital has been rarely documented [5-6]. I spent more than forty years strolling along the alleys of La Salpêtrière, among its old pavilions, the Saint Louis chapel, the "Pavillon des folles", the courtyard of Manon Lescaut and the guard room. I worked full-time between the Escourolle laboratory, the "Amphithéâtre des morts" and the University. It has been a real pleasure to be part of this world. I would also like to offer young doctors in training and future neuropathologists some advice that might help them in the choice and development of their future careers.

When botany inspired pathology of the peripheral nervous system.

Medicine and botany are 2 distinct disciplines of "natural science," one focusing on humans, the other on plants. However, among the life sciences, both were quite close in earlier times. Moreover, the history of neuropathology, especially in the field of the peripheral nervous system, has been marked by many examples of "botanical images" used to describe certain histopathologic structures. We propose to better understand the reasons why neuropathologists used these botanical terms from a number of interesting anecdotes.

A half century of change in diagnostic neuropathology: from the giants of yore to current brain tumor classification

The first issue of Human Pathology contains a laudatory review of one of the most treasured books in the history of neuropathology: Neurological Clinicopathological Conferences of the Massachusetts General Hospital, a collection of neurological cases that appeared first in the New England Journal of Medicine in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Each patient history is discussed by well-known neurologists, neurosurgeons, and neuropathologists. Review of these cases provides a framework to explore diagnostic shifts that have occurred over the past half century. Importantly, while the discussants of these cases were great diagnosticians, they were somewhat limited by the methods available to them at the time; subsequent novel technologies provided opportunities for new insights that were made by the next generation of experts. Today's pathologists (whether neuropathologists or any other pathology subspecialists) are similarly skilled at diagnosis, although their diagnoses are now more often made on biopsies (rather than autopsies) and informed by pre-operative imaging studies as well as post-operative molecular analyses. In turn, one would conclude that, even in the face of future technological changes brought about by disruptive innovations like artificial intelligence and deep molecular analyses, a need will continue for the expertise of pathologists and other clinical diagnosticians.

The history of neuropathology in Debrecen, Hungary

The history of neuropathology in Debrecen, Hungary

The history of neuropathology in Italy

The history of Italian Neuropathology begins in the XIX century with Lombroso with his studies of criminal and prostitutes, inspired by the positivism of the era, and on the brain of epileptic patients. It reached its peak at the beginning of XX century with Camillo Golgi, Nobel laureate for his impregnation of neurons and the theory of the diffuse neuronal net. Neuropathology was then cultivated in Asylums and Universities where the main subject of interest were dementias and degenerative diseases, followed by vascular and inflammatory diseases. Some Laboratories arose in the country, especially in neurological institutes and some people later began to emigrate, especially to France and Germany and then to USA in order to improve their Neuropathology. Starting in the late fifties of the 20th century there was a progressive enrichment of Neuropathology with histochemistry, electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry and then molecular biology and the number of Laboratories increased consistently. As in other developed countries, Neuropathology with the enlargement of its scientific fields, began to split in sub-disciplines. It remained as a wide spectrum of knowledge, but neuropathologists were obliged to specialize in specific areas of the discipline. The continuous change of the set up of the university studies in the country in the last 20 years did not favor Neuropathology from which, moreover, some new independent disciplines originated.

History of neuropathology in Japan.

History of neuropathology in Japan.