Localization Issue

Abstract

For the neuroscientist, what had initially been an issue of mind or body evolved into a controversy among those with evidence of the unique contributions of each brain area to a given function and those impressed by the function of the brain as a whole, where brain mass was often viewed as more important than brain location in determining function or functional loss with its removal. This became a controversy among the radical viewpoints of the localizationist and the equipotentialist. The controversy among these two opposing schools of thought hinged on several major historical events, including the discovery of electricity with Reverend Abraham Bennett first demonstrating the production of electric charges by the contact of two dissimilar metals in 1789. This discovery was followed shortly with the scientific insight that Luigi Galvani (1791) shared in his discovery of the principle of ionic flow, where muscle movement resulted from these processes. Moreover, Galvani concluded that the muscle contractions resulted from electrical stimulation and that the source of the electricity must be in the tissues of the animal’s body, since the metal only served for conduction of the current. This seemed even more probable, since it was known that certain eels and fish were capable of producing violent electrical shocks. Galvani concluded that all animals were capable of producing electricity from their body tissues.