In 1924/25, W.R. Hess in one of his easily most cogent and far-reaching papers — a programmatic treatise on the interrelation between psychic and vegetative functions — hypothesized that the reactivity of the cerebral cortical networks, and, for that matter, of all central nervous networks involved in the organization of (animalic) sensory-motor as well as psychic activities, is under the double — antagonistic — controlling influence of vegetative information channels arising in the brain stem. With this hypothesis Hess anticipated practically everything which later experimentors, through ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ — biophysical, biochemical and pharmacological — methodology would prove to constitute the various ascending regulatory systems, including the now modern neurotransmitter channels, that impinge on what is usually referred to as ‘higher centers’. And still more importantly, with his notion of an ascending vegetative control, Hess provided the very basic neurophysiological foundation necessary for the eventual development functionally well-definedconcept of vigilance.
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Koella, W.P. A modern neurobiological concept of vigilance. Experientia 38, 1426–1437 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01955754
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01955754