Integrative activity of the brain in health and disease of the nervous system

Attempts to link human mental and mental activity with the brain were made in the days of Hippocrates (460-370 BC) and Galen (131-201). At the same time, a connection between the brain and movements on the opposite half of the body was noticed. This was judged by the occurrence of seizures in the half of the body opposite to the lesion of the head [44]. The origin of this fact was associated with a general disruption of the brain. The pathogenesis of all disease states was explained by the humoral theory. In accordance with it, the balance of four fluids - phlegm, blood, black and yellow bile - ensures the normal development and activity of the body. When the balance of these components is disturbed, a disease occurs [39]. In the 17th century, Thomas Willis, the author of the term "neurology", somewhat modernized the humoral theory [45]. He believed that general sensitivity is represented in the striatum, his own feelings in the corpus callosum, and memory in the cortex. This marked the beginning of the development of localization as a direction in the study of brain function. At the extreme pole of this scientific worldview is the phrenological teaching of Franz-Joseph Gall and his students [36]. They assumed that mental and moral qualities are localized in certain areas of the brain surface. At the same time, there is a direct relationship between the degree of development of a particular ability and the volume of its cortical representation. By the shape of the skull, its "tubercles" and "bumps, Gall tried to unravel the professional abilities of a person and characterological features. In 1842, Flurance and Haller put forward the thesis of the physiological equivalence of the cortex. The dogma of the equipotentiality of parts of the brain arose, and then the theory of universalism appeared.