Yesterday during Will’s input on The Physical Child and Brain Development, we were given the task to follow up on the history of brain development from the 20th century up to the present date. After researching the internet, I found a very useful website, PBS, which displayed a simple timeline with detail on how our knowledge of the brain has developed in stages over the years.
1921 – Hermann Rorschach developed an ink blot test which was devised to express our unconscious personality.
1929 – Hans Berger designed the electroencephalograph (EEG), an instrument which measured brain waves.
1934 – Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist, oversees lobotomy as a treatment for depression.
1936 – First lobotomy was performed in the USA by Walter Freeman and James W. Watts.
1938 – Albert Hoffman synthesizes LSD.
1950 – Karl Spencer Lashley conducted experiments devised to reveal the neural factors of memory.
1953 – Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky discover rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
1974 – M.E.Phelps, E.J.Hoffman and M.M.Ter Pogossian develop a machine which shows the activity of the brain, the Positron Emission Topography (PET) scanner.
1987 – Flyoxetine (Prozac) is introduced, used as an antidepressant.
1991 – Stanley B. Prusiner discovers prions.
I found this task and topic really interesting because I focused on memory for my biology project last year and so although I already had knowledge about how the brain works, I have learned so much over the past few inputs.
