The Brain and Human Behaviour

THIS volume is a record of the proceedings of the 1956 meeting of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease. In the preface it is stated that the programme committee decided "to consider separate areas of the brain from the standpoint of what these areas might contribute to behaviour." Pharmacology and biochemistry were included on a small scale, whilst all other aspects of this almost limitless field were deliberately excluded. Had this statement of policy not been recorded, then the student and those whose interest is not primarily psychiatric could have mistaken that part dealt with as representative of every aspect of psycho-p-iysiological research. This is certainly not the case. Provided the reader's psychiatric visual fields remain intact, then this volume is one that will be read with great interest and profit. A galaxy of contributors of the first order of magnitude summarise their work to date. For those who want to pursue any subject further the stage is admirably set, even on occasion in historical perspective. It is not the reviewer's purpose to examine critically every contribution but to deal with a representative sample. Greenblatt and Solomon's contributions to the study of lobotomy arc well known. They summarise their twenty years' work on a-procedure that is nlow well past its zenith. Leucotomy would appear to be at the mercy of a 'changing treatment culture.' Attention is drawn to the advantages and disadvantages of the procedure on relationships within the patient's family circle. They discuss the functional loss suffered both by non-psychotic and psychotic patients, but point to considerable net gains in those who suffered pre-operatively from prolonged and disabling tensions. They admit that leucotomy may be only one of several procedures that will kindle the spark of recovery in the chronic schizophrenic. No fresh criteria emerges for the selection of patients for operation. Denny-Brown and Chambers report a detailed investigation of the parietal lobe syndrome in animals and in man. In man parietal lobe symptoms can be divided into two main groups, namely, the true agnosias (ascertained by speech, writing or drawing) and the amorpho-synthesis group affecting a lower level of perception and involving behaviour. They found that the conventional approach to the problem of localisation of lesions producing specific patterns of symptoms, although useful clinically in recognising parietal disease, is of limited value when applied to the determination of function. The very general common factors that …