Abstract
About 1880, Rudolf Heidenhain, then Professor of Physiology and Histology at the University of Breslau, experimentally studied hypnotic phenomena. Heidenhain explained hypnosis physiologically, in terms of cortical inhibition. Subsequently, I. P. Pavlov, who in 1877 and again in 1884 was Heidenhain’s student at Breslau, encountered hypnotic phenomena during conditional reflex experiments. In 1910, Pavlov described hypnotic states and explained them (as had Heidenhain three decades earlier), in terms of partial inhibition of the cortex. As the concepts of inhibition and excitation are cornerstones of Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity, it is of historical interest to search for influences that led Pavlov to incorporate the concept of inhibition into his theory. It is most likely that Pavlov first encountered the concept of central inhibition in the 1860s when reading I. M. Sechenov’sThe Reflexes of the Brain (1863/1866) and that the importance of the concept was augmented by Heidenhain’s use of it in explaining hypnotic phenomena.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bykov, K. M. (Ed.). (1954). Pavlovskie klinicheskie sredy: Stenogrammy zasedanii nervno i psikhiatricheskoi klinikakh [The PavlovianClinical Wednesdays: Stenographs of the meetings in the nervous and psychiatric clinics]. Vol. 1. Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Bykov, K. M. (Ed.). (1955). Pavlovskie klinicheskie sredy: Stenogrammy zasedanii v nervnoi i psikhiatricheskoi klinikakh [The PavlovianClinical Wednesdays: Stenographs of the meetings in the nervous and psychiatric clinics]. Vol. 2. Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Grützner, P. (1898). Zum Andenken an Rudolf Heidenhain [To the memory of Rudolf Heidenhain].Archiv für die gesammte Physioloqie des Menschen und der Thiere, 72, 221–265.
Gureeva, N. M., & Chebysheva, N. A. (1969).Letopis’ zhizni i deiatel’nosti akademika I. P. Pavlova [The annals of the life and activity of the academician I. P. Pavlov]. Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka.”
Heidenhain, R. (1880).Der sogenannte thierische Magnetismus. Physiologische Beobachtungen [The so-called animal magnetism. Physiological observations]. Leipzig: Verlag von Breitkopf und Härtel.
Heidenhain, R. (1883). Physiologie der Absonderung und Aufsaugung I. Physiologie der Absonderungsvorgänge [The physiology of secretion I. The physiology of absorption and secretion processes]. In L. Hermann (Ed.).Handbuch der Physiologie. Vol. 5, Part 1. Leipzig: Verlag von F. C. W. Vogel.
Koshtoyants, Kh. S. (1946).Essays on the history of physiology in Russia. Moscow, Leningrad: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of USSR.
Orbeli, L. A. (Ed.). (1949).Pavlovskie sredy; protokoly i stenogramy fiziologicheskikh besed [Pavlovian Wednesdays; protocols and stenographs of physiological seminars]. Vol. 2. Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951a). Estestvoznanie i mozg [Science and the brain]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 3, Part 1, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 113–126). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951b). Fiziologiia i patologiia vysshei nervnoi deiatel’nosti [The physiology and pathology of the higher nervous activity]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, Vol. 3, Part 2, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 383–408). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951c). Lektsii o rabote bol’shikh polusharii golovnogo mozga [Lectures on the function of the cerebral cortex]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 4, 2nd ed., enlarged. Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951d). Novye issledovaniia po uslovnym refleksam [New investigation of conditional reflexes]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 3, Part 2, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 428–432). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951e). Uslovnyi refleks [The conditional reflex]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 3, Part 2, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 320–343). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951f). Vvedenie [Introduction]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 3, Part 1, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 13–20). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pavlov, I. P. (1951g). Zadachi i ustroistvo sovremennoi laboratorii dlia izucheniia normal’noi deiatel’nosti vysshego otdela tsentral’noi nervnoi sistemy u vysshikh zhivotnykh [The task and construction of a contemporary laboratory to investigate the normal activity of the higher section of the central nervous system in higher animals]. In I. P. Pavlov,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Vol. 3, Part 1, 2nd ed., enlarged (pp. 127–146). Moscow, Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR.
Pawlow, I. P. (1954). R. Heidenhain zum Gedenken [In memory of Heidenhain]. In I. P. Pawlow,Sämtliche Werke. Vol. 6 (pp. 72–82). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Rothschuh, K. E. (1953).Geschichte der Physiologie [History of physiology]. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
Sechenov, I. (1863/1866).Refleksy golovnogo mozga [The reflexes of the brain]. St. Peterburg: Tipografiia A. Golovachova.
Voit, C. (1898). Rudolf Heidenhain [Rudolf Heidenhain].Sitzung Berichte der Königlichen Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-Physikalischen KL, 461–470.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Windholz, G. Hypnosis and inhibition as viewed by heidenhain and pavlov. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science 31, 155–162 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02699787
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02699787