Text view

The Amazing History of Neuroscience

- Stefano Sandrone and

2000 years ago, namely 500 years after the debate started, Roman physician Galen of Pergamon was sure to have solved the question: it was the brain, not the heart, that was the center of mental life. However, Galen had to convince the people around him that what he had discovered was true. It was not easy, mostly because people were still anchored to their previous convictions and not so open-minded. Every neuroscientist, just like Galen did, has to carefully observe reality, focus on something that was really interesting, think about how it can work (hypothesis), make a prediction, perform experiments, and interpret the data they get. This way, they can obtain convincing evidence to be shared with others. These steps are the pillars of the scientific method, which is probably the basis of the general way of thinking, officially introduced only 500 years ago when René Descartes and Thomas Willis finally stated that the brain had won the debate over the heart.

License information: CC BY 4.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2013.00014

Text difficulty