Historical Depictions of the Brain: The Origins from the Non-Western World.

Any written work concerning the history of neuroanatomy would be difficult to imagine without acknowledging the pioneering works of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi. Cajal improved upon Golgi's staining technique at the turn of the 20th century. He implemented it to deliver the world's first incredibly detailed visualizations of cellular networks of the nervous system. Dating further back to the 15th century, most students of neuroanatomy or of the philosophy of science are familiar with René Decartes' depiction of mind-body dualism which illustrates the passing of visual information to the brain. These illustrations (i.e., mostly Cajal's) have gone on to significantly influence future research, commonly featured as visual aids in neuroscience presentations. Like most of the historical depictions of the brain, including medieval illustrations of trepanning, these drawings are of western European origin. Little, if any work has attempted to compile or assess historical depictions of the brain from outside of the western world. It is very likely that non-western historical depictions of the brain exist, but are less popularized and have been scarce in the circulating historical literature. Thus, more historical investigations are required to balance these views for a complete historical lens on neuroanatomy. Since early civilizations existed far across the globe, it is likely that depictions of the nervous system have existed before the aforementioned scholars who make up the mainstream approach to neuroanatomy history education. The present work aims to introduce students and instructors of neuroscience, and particularly neuroanatomy, to other early illustrated neuroanatomical works which may be less popularized. Additionally, this assessment seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the historical emergence of neuroscience and more specifically, neuroanatomy. This article attempts to start this conversation, utilizing what are thought to be the first modern neuroanatomical analyses of some of the cited illustrations from the non-western world.