Wilder Penfield

Wilder Penfield (born 25/January 26th 1891 - died on April 5th 1976) is a Canadian neurosurgeon , native of Spokane, in the State of Washington (the United States).

Stock exchange student at the University Princeton, it obtains then a Rhodos purse in order to continue his training in Oxford, in England, where it is initiated in Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. But it is at the University Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Maryland) which it becomes doctor before following of the courses of neuropathology to Oxford, to Spain, to Germany and in New York.

In 1928, it comes to work with the Royal Hôpital Victoria of Montreal. Six years later, in 1934, it founds the Institut of neurology of Montreal with a gift of a million dollars. It directs it until in 1960. The Gouvernement of Quebec created a price in its honor, the Prix Wilder-Penfield, in 1993.

Work

Penfield mainly worked on the problems due to various cerebral traumatisms and on the treatment of the epilepsy. With his Herbert collaborator To marble, it treats patients by destroying the neurons of the brain where the accesses epileptics find their origin.

It also made discoveries on the biology of the memory. By operating its patients, he discovered that those brought back the appearance of memories when their temporal lobes was stimulated electrically. He thus concluded that the memories are preserved in specific places of the brain. This observation calls in question those of Karl Lashley which had concluded that the memories are dispersed in all the Cortex.

At the same time, the electric stimulation of the brain makes it possible to identify the parts of the cortex devoted to the feelings and motricity, which Penfield announces since 1937. After having charted the distribution of these zones, Penfield signs with Theodore Brown Rasmussen The Cerebral Cortex off Man (1950), who presents the driving Homoncule and the sensitive Homoncule (also called the sensory homoncule). These results are included in the work written with Jasper, where they draw up a chart of the functional anatomy of the brain: Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy off the Human Brain (1954).

Penfield takes its retirement in 1960 and it writes its memories, No Man Alone , as well as a novel. In 1967, it is with the number of the first members of the Ordre of Canada. In 1994, it enters on a purely posthumous basis to the Temple of the Canadian medical fame. An artery Montreal ease, the avenue of the Doctor-Penfield, is named for him, close to the neurological Institute of Montreal which it founded.

Honors

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