Brain dynamics. The brain activity according to the dynamic conditions of nervous excitability

Abstract

The present edition is the first English translation of a large part of Justo Gonzalo’s original work on Brain Dynamics, closely related to current research topics. Some of the phenomena described were observed much later and others are still unknown. In the parts of Vol. 1 (1945) and 2 (1950) the author characterizes, on the basis of brain injuries from the Spanish Civil War, the central syndrome of the cerebral cortex (multisensory and bilateral disorder) caused by a single unilateral parietoocipital lesion. The observed dynamic effects, such as a gradual loss of functions with decreasing stimulus and their recovery by its intensification or by multisensory or motor facilitation, or by iteration, are explained on a physiological basis. The author describes a careful experimental, quantitative analysis of visual and tactile functions, finding a continuity between simple sensations and higher brain functions. He describes for the first time in great detail phenomena such as inverted or tilted vision, some color disorders, reversal of motion, facilitation, etc. Tactile inversion is also described, generalizing the inverted perception in the central syndrome. Supplement I is the 1952 publication in which the author reports additional cases, and proposes, for the first time, that the specificity of a human brain function is distributed in gradation across the cortex, resulting in brain gradients and a unitary conception of the cortex. Supplement II deals with the concepts of dynamic similarity and allometric scaling power laws applied to the central syndrome, and shows later illustrations by the author.