Journal of the History of the Neurosciences最新文献

To further our understanding of the transformations of the modern, globalized world, historical research concerning the twentieth century must acknowledge the tremendous impact that science and technology exerted and continue to exert on political, economic, military, and social developments. To better comprehend a global history of science, it is also crucial to include Germany's most prominent research organization: The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG). Despite the existence of numerous institute chronicles and selected anniversary editions, the overall development of the MPG-historically situated in more than 80 institutes with more than 250 research service departments (of which approximately 50 have reached into the wider field of neuroscience, behavioral science, and cognitive science)-it remains largely terra incognita from a scholarly perspective. From June 2014 to December 2022, the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society (GMPG) opened previously neglected vistas on contemporary history, academic politics, and economic developments of the Federal Republic of Germany and its international relations by raising questions such as these: Who were the key scientific actors? In what networks did they work? In what fields had the MPG paved the way for cutting-edge innovations? What were its successes and where did it fail? In what ways were its institutional structures connected to its scientific achievements and its historical legacies? What is specific about the MPG in comparison to other national institutions in and outside of Germany? These questions relate to the emerging interdisciplinary field of the neurosciences. They refer in part to the MPG's founding years-from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s-which faced significant challenges for a "normalization process" in biomedical research and the burgeoning field of neuroscience. This special issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences is composed of an introduction, five articles, and two neuroscience history interviews. It reflects on the multifold dimensions of behavioral psychology, brain research, and cognitive science developments at the MPG since its beginning through the reopening of several former Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. After World War II, the extra-university research society-named in honor of physicist Max Planck (1858-1947)-was eventually established in the British Occupation Zone in 1946, in the American Zone in 1948, and in 1949 in the French Zone, unifying the MPG as the successor umbrella organization of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWIs), now transformed into Max Planck Institutes. Chronologically, the research period covered in this special issue ranges from 1948 to 2002.

Dr. Wolf Singer (b. 1943) is one of Germany's most renowned brain researchers and neurophysiologists. His accomplishments in the creation of new research centers for neuroscience as well as his commitment to European scientific organizations for integrative brain research are highly valued as significant moments of advancement in the neurosciences. Before his appointment as a scientific member of the Max Planck Society and director at the Frankfurt Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, he gained deep insight into the chances and pitfalls of translational initiatives at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. From the late 1950s onward, the institute adapted to emerging international trends and successfully integrated neurochemistry, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy into the fledgling interdisciplinary field of neuroscience. This agenda of reorientation was an undertaking of Otto Detlev Creutzfeldt, Detlev Ploog, Gerd Peters, and Horst Jatzkewitz, among others. In the 1970s, Munich's laboratories attracted scientists from several countries in Europe and abroad. This article examines whether specific styles of conducting (neuro)science research existed in the Max Planck Society.

Today, drug dependence is often understood as a "brain disease" and as an indication for behavioral therapy. In this article, I trace the historical development of the notions of drug dependence as a neuronal and behavioral problem in the local research context of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. Focusing on the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, I argue that the neuroscientific and behaviorist understanding of "dependence" had two different trajectories that were yoked together under the same institution of self-proclaimed basic research: (a) the neuroscientific notion derived from an older toxicological approach to drug effects that was then accompanied by biochemical methods from the 1950s onwards, and neurochemical approaches from the 1960s and 1970s; and (b) the behaviorist notion had predecessors in psychotherapeutic approaches to addiction that emerged in the 1950s and took a psychodynamic orientation at the Institute. When the Institute positioned itself as a basic research establishment and developed a unified structure during the 1960s, these psychodynamic approaches were excluded for being "too applied." Soon afterward, behaviorist psychotherapeutic approaches to drug dependence emerged in the 1970s, emphasizing their foundation in basic research. Even though neuroscientific and behaviorist notions had some overlaps through the use of animal experimentation and by referring to basic research, researchers using the two approaches remained separate in their respective units during the time period under analysis. When conceptualizing the local scientific occupation with "drug dependence," I apply here the history of science concept of a "split object." Like the "boundary object," the split object is plastic enough to adapt to local conditions and robust enough to maintain its genuine identity. Compared with the boundary object, however, the split object does not invite scientific collaboration. It does, nonetheless, enable epistemic coexistence under a common institutional goal.

Although 75 years have passed since the end of World War II, the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck Gesellschaft, MPG), successor to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, KWG), still must grapple with how two of its foremost institutes-the KWI of Psychiatry in Munich and the KWI for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch-amassed collections of brains from victims of Nazi crimes, and how these human remains were retained for postwar research. Initial efforts to deal with victim specimens during the 1980s met with denial and, subsequently, rapid disposal in 1989/1990. Despite the decision of the MPG's president to retain documentation for historical purposes, there are gaps in the available sources. This article provides preliminary results of a research program initiated in 2017 (to be completed by October 2023) to provide victim identifications and the circumstances of deaths.

The amygdaloid complex is a crucial component of the basal forebrain that participates in the modulation of many homeostatic functions, emotional behaviors, and learning. These features require a widespread pattern of connections with several brain structures. In the past, the amygdaloid complex was divided into corticomedial and basolateral groups. The existence of a neuronal continuum linking the central amygdaloid nucleus to the lateral bed nucleus of stria terminalis through the subpallidal area was first revealed by José de Olmos (1932-2008) with the aid of his cupric-silver technique. This observation gave birth to the concept of the extended amygdala, a conceptual framework that is useful for understanding the anatomofunctional organization of the amygdaloid complex, with relevance for basic neuroscience and clinical interventions. Traditional tract-tracing staining methods were complicated and tedious to reproduce. Axonal terminal endings were lost among a myriad of normal fibers. The need to visualize these terminals drove de Olmos to develop cupric-silver methods that revealed disintegrating synaptic terminals, without staining normal fibers. In this article, we describe the historical events leading to the development of the cupric-silver technique that evolved into the amino-cupric-silver technique, which developed hand-in-hand over the years.