Chapter 13: the contributions of neurophysiology to clinical neurology an exercise in contemporary history

Abstract

This chapter reviews a number of historical contributions of neurophysiology to clinical neurology in the hundred years that have elapsed since the publication of Sherrington's The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, a book generally considered the neurophysiologist's bible. In the past, many normal nervous functions have been inferred from disorderly functions in animals by neurophysiologists and in humans by clinical neurologists. If neurophysiologists have undoubtedly learned much from experimental lesions in animals, it has been the clinical neurologists who have obtained first-hand information on the effects of pathology on the functioning of the most complex and interesting of all nervous systems, that of man. Currently this division of labor is less clear, and convergent evidence from neurophysiology and clinical neurology alike has set our current knowledge about brain functions on a firm comparative foundation. This review of the relations between neurophysiology and clinical neurology reports contributions that have been recognized as "historical" by the scientific community because of their documented impact on the development of the entire field of neurosciences. The inclusion of further less famous neurophysiological achievements is justified by their potential influence on the advancement of neuroscience, as seen from the author's personal viewpoint.