Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T08:12:16.059Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Changing images of the brain1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

P. L. Lantos*
Affiliation:
Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
2Address for correspondence: Professor P. L. Lantos, Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.

Synopsis

Our concept of the structure and function of the normal and diseased brain has developed throughout the centuries. The first stage in the discovery of the brain stretched over three millennia, from the earliest descriptions by the Egyptians in the sixteenth century B.C. to the comprehensive anatomical treatise of Vesalius. The invention of the light microscope brought to the eye a previously invisible world, and heralded the beginnings of the systematic histological investigation of the immensely complex cellular networks of the brain. With the advent of electron microscopy, the organelles and connections of brain cells have been revealed, and the new era of molecular biology has begun. Neuropathology, which concerns itself with diseases of the brain, spinal cord, nerve and muscle, has enormously benefited from these developments to establish the morphological basis of diseases of the nervous system.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper is based on an Inaugral Lecture delivered at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, on 9 June 1982.

References

REFERENCES

Anderton, B. H., Breinburg, D., Downes, M. J., Green, P. J., Tomlinson, B. E., Ulrich, J., Wood, J. N. & Kahn, J. (1982). Monoclonal antibodies show that neurofibrillary tangles and neurofilaments share antigenic determinants. Nature 298, 8486.Google Scholar
Babbage, C. (1830). Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on some of Its Causes. J. Booth and B. Fellowes: London.Google Scholar
Blakemore, C. (1981). The future of psychiatry in science and society. Psychological Medicine 11, 2737.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brodmann, K. (1909). Vergleichende Lokalisationslehre der Grosshirnrinde in ihren Prinzipien dargestellt auf Grund des Zellenbaues. J. A. Barth: Leipzig.Google Scholar
Clarke, E. & Dewhurst, K. (1972). An Illustrated History of Brain Function. Sandford Publications: Oxford.Google Scholar
Clarke, E. & O'Malley, C. D. (1968). The Human Brain and Spinal Cord. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Garrison, F. H. (1929). An Introduction to the History of Medicine. W. B. Saunders: Philadelphia and London.Google Scholar
Her Majesty's Stationery Office (1982). Mortality Statistics: Cause, 1980. Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Series DH2 No. 7. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Issenberg, P. (1976). Nitrate, nitrosamine and cancer. Federation Proceedings 35, 13221325.Google Scholar
Knight, B. (1980). Discovering the Human Body. Heinemann: London.Google Scholar
Koestler, A. (1964). The Act of Creation. Hutchinson: London.Google Scholar
Koestler, A. (1980). Bricks to Babel. Hutchinson: London.Google Scholar
Lantos, P. L. (1972). The fine structure of periventricular pleomorphic gliomas induced transplacentally by N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea. Journal of the Neurological Sciences 17, 443460.Google Scholar
Lantos, P. L. (1977). The role of the subependymal plate in the origin of gliomas induced by ethylnitrosourea in the rat brain. Experientia 33, 521522.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lantos, P. L. (1980). Chemical induction of tumours in the nervous system. In Brain Tumours. Scientfic Basis, Clinical Investigation and Current Therapy (ed. Thomas, D. G. T. and Graham, D. I.), pp. 85108. Butterworths: London.Google Scholar
Lantos, P. L. & Cox, D. J. (1976). The origin of experimental brain tumours: a sequential study. Experientia 32, 14671468.Google Scholar
Lantos, P. L. & Pilkington, G. J. (1979). The development of experimental brain tumours: a sequential light and electron microscope study of the subependymal plate. I. Early lesions (abnormal cell clusters). Acta Neuropathologica (Berlin) 45, 167175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijinsky, W. & Epstein, S. S. (1970). Nitrosamines as environmental carcinogens. Nature 225, 2123.Google Scholar
Magee, P. N. & Barnes, J. M. (1956). The production of malignant primary hepatic tumours in the rat by feeding dimethylnitrosamine. British Journal of Cancer 10, 114122.Google Scholar
Medawar, P. B. (1967). The Art of the Soluble. Methuen: London.Google Scholar
Pearse, A. G. E. (1980). Histochemistry. Theoretical and Applied (4th edn), Vol. 1. Churchill Livingstone: Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Pilkington, G. J. & Lantos, P. L. (1979). The development of experimental brain tumours: a sequential light and electron microscope study of the subependymal plate. II. Microtumours. Acta Neuropathologica (Berlin) 45, 177185.Google Scholar
Sigerist, H. E. (1961). A History of Medicine, Vol. 2. Early Greek, Hindu and Persian Medicine. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Singer, C. (1925). The Evolution of Anatomy. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.: London.Google Scholar
Singer, C. & Underwood, E. A. (1962). A Short History of Medicine (2nd edn). Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Swann, P. F. & Magee, P. N. (1971). Nitrosamine-induced carcinogenesis. The alkylation of N-7 of guanine of nucleic acids of the rat by diethylnitrosamine, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea and ethyl methanesulphonate. Biochemical Journal 125, 841847.Google Scholar
Willis, R. A. (1962). The Pathology of the Tumours of Children. Oliver and Boyd: Glasgow.Google Scholar
Young, J. Z. (1978). Programs of the Brain. Oxford University Press: Oxford.Google Scholar