Pre-Brodmann pioneers of cortical cytoarchitectonics I: Theodor Meynert, Vladimir Betz and William Bevan-Lewis
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REVIEW
Pre‑Brodmann pioneers of cortical cytoarchitectonics I: Theodor Meynert, Vladimir Betz and William Bevan‑Lewis Lazaros C. Triarhou1 Received: 25 July 2020 / Accepted: 21 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study and the sequel paper revisit landmark discoveries that paved the way to the definition of the renowned Brodmann areas in the human cerebral cortex, in an attempt to rectify certain undeserved historical neglects. A ‘first period of discoveries,’ from 1867 to 1882, is represented by the work of neuropsychiatrists Theodor Meynert (1833–1892) in Vienna, Vladimir Betz (1834–1894) in Kiev and William Bevan-Lewis (1847–1929) in Wakefield. Their classical findings are placed in a modern perspective. Keywords Cerebral cortex · Brodmann areas · Cortical localization · History of neuroscience · Human brain function
Introduction The study of cortical cytoarchitectonics, or the cellular constitution, laminar organisation and regional variations of the cerebral cortex, has a history of almost 220 years. The earliest steps that paved the way to the classical era of cortical cytoarchitectonics were taken in Europe between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. During the ‘prefatory period’, fundamental discoveries were made by Francesco Gennari (1750–1797), Félix Vicq d’Azyr (1748–1794), Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring (1755–1830), Jules Baillarger (1809–1890), Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905), and Rudolf Berlin (1833–1897). Namely, Gennari (1782) first provided evidence of regional cortical differentiation by observing a white stria in the calcarine sulcus of frozen human brains. Vicq d’Azyr (1786) and Soemmerring (1788) independently described the same characteristic white band of myelinated fibres in the thin occipital cortex. Baillarger (1840) recognised six cortical layers and identified the external stria of Gennari as forming layer III—actually the outer part of layer IV—in all regions of the cortex and an internal stria in layer V (Fulton 1937). * Lazaros C. Triarhou [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Theoretical and Applied Neuroscience, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of Macedonia, Egnatia 156, Bldg. Z‑312, 54636 Thessalonica, Greece
Kölliker (1854) described four main layers in unstained sections of fixed brains, essentially fusing the two outer layers of Baillarger into one (the overlying white layer), and the two inner layers into one (the innermost grey-red layer). By examining microscopic preparations stained with Gerlach carmine red, Berlin (1858) confirmed the six layers of Baillarger and recognised the three main types of cortical neurons (pyramidal, granule, and spindle cells). The ‘classical period’ began in the late 1860s and lasted through the Interwar period. The first period of discoveries, from 1867 to 1882, is represented by the work of neuropsychiatrists Theodor Meynert (1833–1892) in Vienna, Vladimir Betz (1834–1894) in Kiev and William BevanLewis (1847–1929) in Wakefield. Meynert and his hi
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